I have always had a deep respect for the craft of editing and translation –or how we connect with others through language– but above all, for poetry: a genre that, though we know it is little read, has served as a vessel of communication between writers from different languages and regions. In 2018, I had a new experience: I was invited to contribute one of my poems to an anthology planned for publication in Zimbabwe. The idea came from writer and translator Jack Little, who has translated Mexican authors into English and published them through his editorial house, Ofi Press Mexico.
Little put me in touch with Zimbabwean artist, editor, and self-published writer Tendai Rinos Mwanaka. Born in 1973 in Nyanga, a remote village in eastern Zimbabwe, Mwanaka considers himself a multidisciplinary artist. His main interests include writing in various genres (poetry, fiction, music reviews, essays), as well as photography and collage. In 2018, he founded the independent label Mwanaka Media & Publishing in Zimbabwe with the aim of publishing authors from various African countries and making their books available through platforms such as Amazon and African Books Collective. His publishing house is funded by book sales, including his own literary work published under his imprint.
From that connection came the anthology Writing Grandmothers: Africa and Latin America Vol. 2. This book served as a meeting point to explore our maternal roots in two languages, Spanish and English, and, in turn, offered a way to learn about the work of writers from across Latin America and Africa. We became good friends, and in 2024 Mwanaka had the idea to continue with a series of volumes exploring the intersection of translation, culture, and the traditions of Latin American (particularly Hispanic American) and African writers. There was a reason for this: the positive response from readers to the first two volumes in the series: Writing Language, Culture and Development: Africa and Asia Vol. 1 and the aforementioned Writing Grandmothers: Africa and Latin America Vol. 2. Editor Mwanaka’s genuine interest lies in discovering and appreciating literature from different geographical areas, which is why he publishes compilations containing a range of styles and perspectives.
This time, I was to collaborate as guest editor of Men: An Anthology of African and Latin American Writers, Volume 3. Authors from two continents –so distant geographically and culturally– would share their experiences of masculinity in their places of origin. But what did it mean to edit an anthology when the two editors lived so far apart? Some of the obstacles we faced were purely practical: the time difference, our daily communication in English via email, and the limited time available to select, edit, and translate the texts. Mwanaka translated the work of African authors who did not write in English. The Latin American texts remained in Spanish, my native language, to reach a broader Spanish-speaking readership who might also be interested in the African contributions. In the case of Writing Language, Culture and Development: Africa and Asia Vol. 1, a bilingual translation was undertaken by the editors at the time. As with the previous volumes, our anthology would be printed on demand to reduce costs and maintain independence.
We agreed on the foundations of the call for submissions: first, who it would be aimed at –on a shared belief that writing is a way to describe and understand the world–. We were looking for writers and artists who shared this vision and were willing to engage with core themes around masculinity. The anthology would reflect men’s experiences, how they perceive their environments, and the current struggles against discrimination based on race, gender, or sexual orientation. Naturally, another central theme would be the relationship with women in their places of origin, challenging rigid and traditional gender roles.
Masculinity is not an issue exclusive to men; women’s perspectives are indispensable. We decided to launch the call for submissions on social media –Facebook, X, and Instagram– across both continents, in both Spanish and English. We wanted to include various literary genres: poetry, prose, fiction, short stories, and illustration (painting or collage), aesthetic forms that have long interested Mwanaka. The gender or age of the participant did not matter, nor whether they had been previously published or were submitting an unpublished work. The two key criteria were that the author must be from a country in Africa or Latin America, and that their text must relate to the theme. The deadline for submissions was set at two months, during which we received a large number of texts and illustrations.
The countries from which we received the most contributions were Kenya, Honduras, Mexico, Uganda, Malawi, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Cuba. The response was overwhelmingly positive, though we had to reject submissions that contained hate speech –homophobia, racism, xenophobia, misogyny– based on an editorial policy we both strongly agreed upon. Most authors were between 25 and 50 years old. Poetry was the dominant genre, and male authors greatly outnumbered female ones –likely due to the title of the call, as we received only five submissions from women.
