Ekari Writes

Meet Jember, the Ethiopian Superhero I had the privilege of chatting with an African comic book creator who is breaking out in a big way. Using the power of Kickstarter , he is raising funds to produce and distribute his brand new comic book from scratch. Since the popular Black Panther  movie, the doors have been opened for African superheroes (which have existed for years) to garner more global attention than ever before.  The strategic release of this creator's project duringUS Black History Month cannot be overlooked... The young man's name is  Beserat Debebe , and we discussed his brainchild;  Jember . Read more to find out more about the Ethiopian Superhero, and how you can be a part of bringing this exciting project to fruition. UPDATE: The Kickstarter fund surpassed its funding goals in just 4 hours! You can still contribute for the remaining days until the 4th of March for their stretch goal to do an epic comic book tour across Africa ... ...

I've been collecting a stack of fiction that centrally features black characters, so after spinning around with my eyes closed and picking one at random, I started with reading  Amber and the Hidden City .  The book is a fantasy adventure story by  African-American  author Milton J. Davis, centered around the titular character. Amber is a 13 year old African-American girl who discovers that her grandmother is actually from the mystical city of Marai, which is magically hidden in the Sahara. Amber has inherited her grandmother's talents as a seer, and is urgently needed to guide the elders of Marai to who the next leader will be. The only problem is, she has no idea that the city is real, and the knowledge turns her whole world view upside down... She embarks on a dangerous trek across the world with her grandmother, to Paris, Senegal, Timbuktu, and finally Marai - all the while pursued by the minions of a power-hungry Marai elitist with his eye on the ...

A website called  Kinna Reads  initiated an Africa Reading Challenge with a simple rule: read at least 5 African books in the period of January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015. I thought this was a great excuse to venture into a large range of quality African books which the world is finally starting to notice. It also fit in very conveniently with the personal challenge I had already given myself a few years ago to read more African books. The goal of my challenge was to begin to familiarise myself with African writing, since my intention is to be published amongst that group. I grew up preferring western novels for reasons I have discovered have more to do with the global industry (availability, advertising, what type of African books get published) than actual quality. Without venturing into what can and cannot be defined as an African book, I made my choice based on accessibility (to me) and  interest. I sourced them from a variety of places, ...

A website called  Kinna Reads  initiated an Africa Reading Challenge with a simple rule: read at least 5 African books in the period of January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015. I thought this was a great excuse to venture into a large range of quality African books which the world is finally starting to notice. It also fit in very conveniently with the personal challenge I had already given myself a few years ago to read more African books. The goal of my challenge was to begin to familiarise myself with African writing, since my intention is to be published amongst that group. I grew up preferring western novels for reasons I have discovered have more to do with the global industry (availability, advertising, what type of African books get published) than actual quality. Without venturing into what can and cannot be defined as an African book, I made my choice based on accessibility (to me) and  interest. I sourced them from a variety of places, ...