Editor’s Note

Dear Brittle Paperians,

It’s festive season and our third volume of the Festive Anthology is here! Our previous volumes included HomeGrown Joy and Table Setting, both of which focused on the festive joy that many across our beautiful continent celebrate. While curating those anthologies, I was reminded of the importance of preparation and how much of the joy we find in holidays we celebrate are found in the build-up, the days spent cooking, the many outfit fittings, and the anticipation we have for the big days that lie ahead. So, this year, we are focusing on just that! This year’s anthology is Counting Down the Holidays, an African literary advent calendar of sorts that houses 25 pieces to open and enjoy as we count down to the festive season!

I’m from Cape Town, South Africa, and my joy for the festive season comes from my culture as a Cape Malay Coloured woman as there is nothing more festive than the Kaapse Klopse! This editor’s note would be far too long if I got into the entire history of the klopse, so I strongly urge you to read more about it yourself. In short, the tradition stems from the colonial era where slaves were given a day off on January 2nd, thus becoming the day to celebrate the new year by dressing in colourful outfits and playing instruments, such as the banjo, saxophone and ghoema drums. Tweede Nuwe Jaar (Second New Years) is a powerful tradition that our ancestors made amidst a painful experience, one that celebrates life, community and our beloved culture. There is nothing more magical than being in Cape Town and hearing the tunes spilling out of the klopse kamers, rooms where different teams practice, and knowing that festive season is fast approaching. There are many different aspects to the tradition and the history is one that far extends my mere summary and while I know that this does not do it justice, in this anthology of festive preparation, I wanted to share my own with all of you.

As this anthology takes on the advent calendar feel, we have some Christmasy pieces to get you in the festive mood, such as Musleemat Elewade and Temitope Omamegbe’s works. We know festive season does not just include Christmas, so we also have NmaHassan Muhammad and Lukman Nurudeen Adeniyi’s Eid poems! But we also taking a trip from the top to the bottom of this glorious continent, from Morocco with Youssef Oubihi, South Sudan with Dikun Elioba, DRC with Nteranya Sanginga, to South Africa with Zizipho Godana.

Our brilliant writers have given you a 25-part festive gift of essays, poems, creative non-fiction and fiction, and we hope you enjoy every single one! In true advent calendar fashion, I have not included page numbers in the contents page so that you can stumble upon each gorgeous piece as a little holiday surprise.

Brittle Paper hopes you have a beautiful and safe festive period and that you enjoy our collection made with you in mind!

– Tahzeeb Akram

Download for Free: Counting Down the Holidays