The Runaway Princess and Other Stories!

Dear Friends,

Welcome to October and spooky season!

You are probably already aware of the main Mythological Africans event of October: the Kickstarter Campaign to support “The Runaway Princess and Other Stories”. This is a collection of short stories recounting the deeds and misdeeds of memorable women from African history, legend, and folklore. I include illustrations by a variety of incredibly talented African artists to make these amazing women come alive even more!

When Mwindo Met Kahindo (Art by Kernyuy Mark Daniel)

Every morning, I have a practice of looking at journal entries from a month, six months and a year ago. This gives me a chance to look at the evolution of my thoughts and feelings, to confirm intuitions, reaffirm intentions and decide on any necessary course corrections. Imagine my pleasure and surprise yesterday morning when I saw that the idea to create this book solidified in my spirit exactly a year ago!

Full Circle

Why am I writing this book, anyway? Well, it’s really because of Mary Bonjeh. Odds are you don’t know who Mary Bonjeh is and that’s alright. But my siblings don’t remember who Mary Bonjeh is either and that is troubling! You see, Mary Bonjeh is the protagonist from a story my cousin, Yvonne, told us during one of our childhood story time sessions. Mary Bonjeh was an impoverished young woman who was loved by a prince. A group of envious women didn’t think she was good enough for him, so they engineered a crisis which resulted in Mary being driven out of the kingdom and the prince forgetting her name and face. A chance encounter (Mary in a tree, throwing dirt down on the prince) brought them back together and she had to say her name repeatedly and stamp it on the fufu, pies and other foods the prince ate until he remembered his lost love and brought her back to his side. I seem to be the only one in my family who remembers Mary Bonjeh and that really bugs me. I found myself wondering which other women’s stories might be forgotten simply because they are not being told.

When I started curating Mythological Africans, I was immediately drawn to the stories of girls and women, especially the ones I didn’t already know. To my delight, I was introduced to a world of sages, sorceresses, mothers, monsters, seekers, healers, sisters, leaders, warriors, survivors, rebels and more. As I read their stories, I grew curious about what their inner worlds might be like. Traditional folktales, as you may know, don’t spend too much time on feelings and thoughts. My storytelling approach, therefore, focuses on what I imagine the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists might be. You can read an excerpt from the book here.

I really hope you are inspired by the project and will join me on the journey to bring it to completion and release in January 2023. You can pledge on Kickstarter or shop the store! Also, stay tuned for more opportunities to learn about the project.

What else do we have going on in October? I’ll be returning to our friends over at Romancing the Gothic to talk about Queerness and Supernatural Otherness in the fiction of Helen Oyeyemi, Eloghosa Osunde and Akwaeke Emezi. I will focus on how these Nigerian authors celebrate and continuously expand prevailing narratives about those individuals, usually queer or neurodivergent, who consciously inhabit both the world of spirits and the world of the living. Sign up here!

Meanwhile, if you missed the Twitter Space discussion on Gender and Power in the Kingdom of Dahomey, you can listen to it and other talks here.

Thank you, as always, for your time and your support!

Be well,

Helen