ONE WORLD!!!!!

There must be something in the air. First the huge vote for change and a mixed race President-elect who is already having a huge effect on the world.

Second, the One World Anthology is now going to be a reality. Our team leader, Nigerian Journalist Ovo Adagha has just signed the contract with our publishers! Wheeeee! And there is such wonderful news to impart.

First: All royalties are going to Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Our publishers are New Internationalist. NEW INTERNATIONALIST WEBSITE HERE

The little team of multi-national multi-cultural, multi-coloured and multi-ethnic writers only came together on the web a year ago... each working on a piece of short fiction illustrating something we wanted to say about the world. We aimed at getting the stories posted, reviewed, edited, re-reviewed in a few months.

Then the marketing began...and thanks to Molara Wood, we found New Internationalist and struck the beginnings of a deal very fast.

So, publication is scheduled for the spring of 2009!

But the most moving, exciting thing has been the generosity of two world class writers who wanted to support the project.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, known to one of the group, agreed to let us publish a story that had previously never appeared in print.

And then I plucked up courage to talk to Jhumpa Lahiri, talked to her about the anthology... and she agreed that we could have a reprint of one of the most extraordinary stories in Interpreter of Maladies, her Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection.

So the collection opens with Leng Lui is for Pretty Lady , a short story by an erstwhile Fiction Workhouse writer called Elaine Chiew (see link on the right), and finishes with The First and Final Continent, by Jhumpa lahiri.

And in between somewhere are stories from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Henrietta Rose Innes (winner of the 2008 Caine Prize for African writing) and some 20 other writers, including one from me.

Phew. Full list of contributors and their respective countries follows:

Elaine Chiew (Malaysia)
Molara Wood (Nigeria)
Martin A Ramos (Puerto Rico)
Henrietta Rose-Innes (South Africa)
Lauri Kubuitsile (Botswana)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
Shabnam Nadiya (Bangladesh)
Ravi Mangla (USA)
Chiks Unigwe (Nigeria)
Dipita Kwa (Cameroon)
Vanessa Gebbie (Wales)**
Sequoia Nagamatsu (USA)
Jude Dibia (Nigeria)
Konstntinos Tzikas (Greece)
Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe)
Kan N Kamoche (Kenya)
Lucinda Nelson Dhavan (India)
Adetokunbo Gbenga Abiola (Nigeria)
Skye Brannon (USA)
Wadzanai Mhute (Zimbabwe)
Ivan Gabriel Rehorek (Australia)
Ovo Adagha (Nigheria)
Jhumpa Lahiri (USA)


**ironic,,,