Ayin Press has announced the forthcoming publication of Selah: A Báyò Akómoláfé Reader, slated for release this winter. This anticipated collection presents a selection of short-form writings by Báyò Akómoláfé, the Nigerian philosopher-poet, essayist, and posthumanist thinker known for his expansive work across disciplines, traditions, and continents.

Described by the publisher as “a profound, playful, and kaleidoscopic collection,” Selah is intended both for long-time readers of Akómoláfé’s work and for those encountering his thought for the first time. Drawing from his already prolific archive—comprising books, articles, interviews, social media posts, workshops, and ritual practices—the book is designed to serve as an accessible entry point into his evolving philosophical landscape.

Akómoláfé, a self-described “trans-public” intellectual, is widely recognized for his efforts to challenge the epistemological boundaries of modern thought. His writing addresses issues ranging from ecological crisis to the politics of identity, and it does so through a poetic and often mythic lens. In Selah, readers will encounter many of the key ideas that have come to define his thinking, including “ontofugitivity,” “ecocognitive assemblage theory,” “parapolitics,” and “postactivism.” These terms, coined and developed across his body of work, invite readers to consider the world not as a static entity, but as a dynamic, relational, and perpetually unfolding reality.

The collection is framed not as a traditional anthology but as a curated constellation of “aphorisms, anti-epiphanies, prose poems, and philosophical fragments,” according to Ayin Press. It takes its title from the enigmatic Hebrew word “Selah,” which appears throughout the Book of Psalms. The term, as the publisher explains, “suggests a moment of ecstatic exclamation or musical notation,” offering a resonant metaphor for the book’s approach—both lyrical and reflective.

Akómoláfé’s inspirations span a wide range of thinkers and traditions, including Édouard Glissant, Gilles Deleuze, Gregory Bateson, Octavia Butler, Fernand Deligny, and Chinua Achebe. His work is also deeply influenced by Yoruba cosmologies, especially through the figure of Esu, the trickster-deity who presides over the crossroads. As such, Selah is as much a philosophical text as it is a spiritual and poetic one.

The book has already received praise from a number of acclaimed writers and thinkers. Author and activist adrienne maree brown writes: “Báyò Akómoláfé is a philosopher who is pushing us to think outside of every narrative we take for granted. In this text, he guides us to reconsider how we relate to the world—and to internalize the fact that earth and all of nature are alive, relating to us. Selah is an ancient Indigenous orientation, poured through Báyò’s trickster poetry to make for a fresh agitation.”

Other endorsements come from Indigenous Knowledge Systems scholar Tyson Yunkaporta, speculative ecologist Sophie Strand, author Dougald Hine, and theorist Erin Manning, each highlighting the depth, originality, and unsettling grace of Akómoláfé’s thought.

Báyò Akómoláfé is the author of These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home and co-author of We Will Tell Our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak. He is the founder of the Emergence Network and currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. Beginning in Fall 2025, he will serve as the Hubert Humphrey Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Macalester College. He also holds fellowships with the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, and the Aspen Institute.

Selah will be among the inaugural titles published under Aora Books, a new imprint of Ayin Press focused on “transformational thought and culture beyond borders, disciplines, and traditions.”

Preorder your copy here!