Issue 01

For nearly two decades now, we have shared with each other countless novels, short stories, and essays that we not only imagined but knew for sure that the other will be grateful for, either for the content or style, often both. Our confidence in recommending is not based on certainty about each other’s literary aesthetics or taste, which isn’t static anyway, but in the knowledge that good writing, like good food, is instantly recognizable upon consumption before any analysis of its composition.

While serving as connoisseurs for this issue, our first, we were feeling for just that, writing in any form or style that is so pleasurable it inspires immediate sharing among efikos. In our quest, we were lucky to have received the best from writers that have been on the scene for a while and those with talent we found incompatible with their relatively recent time of arrival.

The all-female fiction line up, a delightful coincidence, explore the disposition of women in various parts of the continent in often hilarious, fundamentally sad narratives. If there is anything approaching a conclusion from these stories, it is that victims are sometimes abusers themselves.

The poems do what poetry does best, giving us language in its, according to Rita Dove, “most distilled, most powerful.”  The nonfiction offering range from a political piece about waiting to be confirmed for a government position—almost as stressful as waiting for a decision on your submission to your favourite literary magazine—to a personal narrative about an encounter with a tortoise bought for a reason other than peppersoup (a very un-Nigerian move). These pieces will make you see the need for Efiko.

Launching a literary magazine is an exciting, often arduous task. We carried on because we believe we are doing the Lord’s work, bringing you excellent writing.