drr is proud to present Issue 3, our third issue in two years. Quite the journey as we continue to learn. We took a different approach to this edition, having started work on it at the beginning of 2020 as worlds many of us knew abruptly shifted. We didn’t have a call out for this. This time we reached out to writers, friends and friends of friends, asking them to think with us in this moment of asphyxia.
We are still here. Again. For the first time.
We are in Umoja, we are in Lekki, we are in Somalia, we are in Pangani, we are at Central Police Station. We are in the moment between fellowship and betrayal. There is madness here. Wandering inter-loopers and nautonomats breaching temporal laws. There is old fashioned sedition and that unfinished tryst with theory. That refusal to be unfreedomed. In one of the darkest periods we find ourselves in, these stories, largely non-fiction accounts, remind us we are still here, that ship of fools adrift down the river.
We are also glad to have collaborated with Akoia Africa on the NDF>NBO film festival that run through three weeks last December. This issue includes a supplement of writings in conversation with films featured in the festival. Find some of the reviews here.
We are also grateful to the work done by Makena Onjerika and the Nairobi Fiction Workshop (Poetry) and extending an invite to one of our editors to lead a poetry class. Much of the poetry in this issue is as a direct result of this work, all guest edited by alumni of the Workshop. Karibu.
Akindayo Akinwale
Annointing Obuh
Ayobami Adesina
bethuel muthee
Brian Muraya
Felix Omondi
Frank Karioris
Idza Luhumyo
Jakky Bankong-Obi
Joel Lukhovi
Karwitha Kirimi
Lorna Likiza
Lubnah Abdulhalim
Maureen Wambui
Michelle K Angwenyi
Miringu Ndungu
Naomi Waweru
Nyambura M Waruingi
Nyamwa
Nzube Nlebedim
Praise Osawaru
Timi Sanni
Roseline Mgbodichimma Anya Okorie
Order Asphyxia here:
Series Editors
Anointing Obuh is a writer, singer and photographer from Nigeria. She is 20:35 Africa’s New Poet for the month of January 2021. Her works have been featured in: Third Estate Art, Rattle, Josephine Quarterly, The Lumiere Review, Barren Magazine and elsewhere. She was a finalist for Hollins Literary Festival Contest 2021, the Stephen Dibiase Poetry Contest 2021 and Long-listed for the Nigerian News Direct Poetry Prize 2021. She was guest editor for DRR Issue 3. She says hello.
Alvin Kathembe is a writer and poet from Nairobi, Kenya.
