World Building Essay Reviewed – BSFA Vector
Included in a broader review by Amirah Muhammad for BSFA's Vector magazine of the Bloomsbury ‘Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction’ anthology, my essay – “Cosmologies and Languages Building Africanfuturism” was mentioned.
I am grateful to the reviewer, Amirah Muhammad, for including Pule kaJanolintji in their review excerpt on our work together. There has been much positive feedback on my essay in this anthology and I am glad it is getting read and noticed out there, highlighting Pule's own projects, skills and valued creative endeavours.
Excerpt:
In particular, Embleton’s chapter emphasises the creative opportunity that language presents in speculative writing. His research in linguistics and writing systems, including Ge’ez, Nsibidi, Tifinagh, and isiBheqe soHlamvu or Ditema tsa Dinoko, led to the creation of the word Huriǁhaoǃnakhoena for his novel, Soul Searching (2020). Embleton writes that “Huriǁhaoǃnakhoena is both a word and a phrase – literally translated, it means ‘the people who built the settlements in the sea’”. The word is a microcosm for the ways that Embleton has combined the technical research involved in writing his novel (including his collaboration with Pule kaJanolintji), with the ways that language evolves to reflect cosmology for both real and fictional worlds.
