Two well-known writers Muthi Nhlema and Ekari Mbvundula Chirombo alongside Simon Banda II have published an anthology titled Mombera Rising.
The anthology is part of the African Futures project that seeks to explore alternative preferred futures by using indigenous knowledge systems and belief systems to chart a new direction towards a sustainable future,
This is a free digital collection of Malawian speculative eco-fiction stories and artwork that envisions a Ngoni future over the next century.
The anthology is part of a project that is supported by Swedish Research Council, Formas Project, and the Future Ecosystems for Africa Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa in partnership with Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation.
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Set in a futuristic Malawi, Mombera Rising consists of three captivating stories, each inviting readers to imagine a preferable future where the Ngoni tribe of Northern Region has the agency to step away from colonial notions of progress and modernity to manage their environments on their own terms, using their own knowledge and belief systems.
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Working at the intersection of nature, culture and technology, the anthology, according to Nhlema, is the culmination of years’ worth of collaboration and conversations between scientists, artists, writers and the Ngoni community to create the space for artistic voices from the Global South to illuminate alternative paths towards sustainable futures and engage with issues of sustainability from an indigenous context and perspective.
The anthology will be launched next month.
“This is a free digital anthology that will be available online on 8th of March 2024. Malawi was chosen as one of the countries where they were implementing the project,” Nhlema said.
Mbvundula Chirombo recalled that in 2021, a team from the University of Stockholm in Sweden and the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa collaborated on a research project whose goal was to study relationships between indigenous Ngoni people of Mzimba and their environment, as well as how culture factors into their beliefs about nature.
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“The research team hired us as writers to interview the Ngoni people of Northern Malawi and ask them to imagine what their future would look like. We took these findings and turned them into fleshed out stories, and Mombera Rising is the result,” Mbvundula Chirombo said.
She said that the anthology has three stories; one based in the near future, the second further out and the final one in the distant future.
“These three stories paint a vivid picture of a future Malawi, pushing our sense of what is possible for nature and people,” she said.
