Literary collective Jalada has put out a call for submissions for their ninth anthology.

Founded in 2013, their seven-year existence has seen the release of several successful anthologies and ambitious projects, such as the publication of a short story by Ngugi wa Thiong’o in 33 languages.

Jalada is currently asking writers to contribute to their ninth anthology on the theme of nostalgia. They accept submissions in fiction, poetry, essays, visual art and interviews. The work should be “an exploration of memory, tradition and modernity, the tactile and the intangible, legacy and erasure, stagnation and evolution, the possible and impossible.”

See below for details:

“What has the expansion and extinction of languages, plants and wildlife; destruction of the  sky and sea, land and peoples pushed us further away from or drawn us closer to? What  have we reclaimed and (re)invented? What is the result of the commodification of  everything and the homogenization of everyone?    

But, change isn’t all bad. Humanity is better for macro shifts such us the end of slave trade  and colonization; the successful push for civil rights and women’s liberation; advances in  medicine, science and technology; ideological shifts within the realm of literature and the  arts. What was worth leaving behind as recently as yesterday or the past millenniums?  What do we remember or know of the old worlds?    

Nostalgia is also ​Saudade, ​the love that remains or never happened.    

Saudade​ (English: /ˌsaʊˈdɑːdə/, European Portuguese: [sɐwˈðaðɨ], Brazilian Portuguese:  [sawˈdadi] or [sawˈdadʒi], Galician: [sawˈðaðɪ]; plural ​saudades​) is a deep emotional state of  profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. 

How does one process things than never were? The imagined, not necessarily real or  accurate pasts; (re)constructed memory? Have we reconciled with the various trajectories of promise rooted in the past and the peoples and nations we were supposed to be by now?    

This is an exploration of memory; tradition and modernity, the tactile and the intangible, legacy and erasure, stagnation and evolution, the possible and impossible.”

Deadline: July 31

Click HERE for the rules and guidelines.

Submissions should be emailed to [email protected].