A River Called Time

by Courttia Newland

  I didn’t entirely give up. Friends who’d read it would encourage me. My wife would remind me that it was good. Every so often, though not very much, I’d take it out of the cabinet to read at a literary event. At least once a year, sometimes more, I’d revisit the pages and make a complete polish of what I had. I added the chapter where Markriss fights Nesta during one of those rewrites. Worked on line edits, brushed up ideas. One thing I’d begun to learn during those many hours of edits was just how much colonial thought I put on the page without noticing. There was so much my self-imposed rules wouldn’t allow me to say. Theory postulates, for example, that Africa might have been the Roman name for the continent, driven by their desire to separate people they conquered in the north from their origins in the south. Heard that one before, right? Other scholars make the claim that a Yemenite chief, Afrikanus, invaded North Africa and founded the town Afrikyah (I myself have seen no evidence to support this). Some believe the name came from Kemit, and stems from ‘Afru-ika’ or ‘Motherland’. Again, I’m not particularly familiar with this claim. It could be Phoenician or Latin, Sanskrit or Hindi. It might have come from Afer, a grandson of Abraham and companion of Hercules. We just don’t know.

  In actual fact, there is no recorded name for the continent given by the people who lived there over millennia, so I used a derivation of ‘Alke-Bulan’, the oldest known name, said to have come from the Carthaginians and meaning ‘Mother of Mankind’, or ‘Garden of Eden’. I’d used another derivation, Malakay, for the name of Beverley’s son in The Gospel According to Cane, where he represented her dislocation with the land of her heritage. In ARCT, Bulan felt right to me.

  Regularly, I tripped up. For years, Chileshe was introduced as having ‘Zambian’ origins. People were Nigerian etc., all part of a colonial construct. I remember a very frustrated conversation with Emma Dabiri on Twitter, both of us lamenting the head-trip of trying to find pre-colonial information on the continent and its people (quick clue; we didn’t use the word trip). I didn’t have the money to go out there and do more, so the best compromise I came up with was to find the names of former nation states, what Europeans referred to belittlingly as ‘tribes’, and try to track which peoples had existed in the regions I needed pre-colonisation. For this, our history had to be told by our scholars. If I couldn’t find it in a book written by someone of my continental heritage, it didn’t go in.

  One thing that really turned things around for me, though I didn’t know at the time, was a short story, almost a novella I’d written called The Ausares Principle. Even that was called The Osiris Project, up until I learned that title was taken by E.J. Swift, and remembered Osiris had been the name the Greeks attributed to the god. After I failed to complete ARCT, I wrote a novel called Minx which would also go unpublished, but that’s a whole other afterword. Halfway through, I stopped writing for a couple of months, as I often do, to take a break by writing totally unrelated stories, before going back to the marathon of the novel.

  Ausares was the story of Harman Wallace’s demise, how he became an ancestor, and inadvertently went on to affect so many of my choices for ARCT later. It was there I started playing with indigenous names for Caribbean islands, Cubanascan, Xaymaca and others. If I hadn’t written that story I don’t think I would’ve realised just how colonial my supposed ‘decolonised’ mind remained, and the complete abundance of work I had to do. I wrote just under 25k in about a week, and it reinvigorated my belief in the world I’d created. Much like Harman Wallace did Markriss, the wayward professor showed me The Way.

  After revising that story to a point where I was satisfied, I went back to my academic texts and started again.

  My research for this novel was made up of extensive reading, for the most part, and continued throughout every stage of the writing process. As I came to the final pages of the book I began to feel that a reading list of the texts I studied might be helpful, although these are not to be read as literal influences on the work. Though I have a belief in spirituality, for the purposes of this story I approached the subject as myths and legends, similar to the manner in which Nordic folktales drive and influence modern writers of fantasy, and fantasy-inspired stories. Whether a belief in chakras, spiritual planes and ethereal bodies can be proven or disproven is not my remit here. I was simply interested in what constitutes a good story, while staying reasonably true to the tenets of a great many cosmological systems. In a few cases I took fictional liberties with what I read and understood. If anything is wrong or out of place, it’s mostly for this reason, and I am to blame.

  From my notes, it would seem that the first books I picked up were Ra Un Nefer Amen’s Metu Neter Volumes 1 and 2, and Maat: The 11 Laws of God. All were very well written and invaluable sources I both started and finished with. As any student of Egyptology will know, the work of Sir E.A. Wallis Budge is pre-eminent, even if it remains hampered by aspects of colonial thought and language: Egyptian Religion, Egyptian Magic and The Great Awakening: The Egyptian Book of the Dead are all enlightening. Wayne Chandler’s Ancient Future, Malidoma Some’s Of Water and the Spirit and Dr Wade Nobles’ Standing in the River were exemplary, and set me on my journey.

  For historical context, Robin Walker’s When We Ruled and Before the Slave Trade are illuminating and essential.

  For concepts of time, Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time, and J.H. Brennan’s Time Travel were very helpful. The latter is purported to be a guide for beginners, yet still blew my mind. Be warned.

  Further reading concerning spirituality and the subtle bodies included The Projection of the Astral Body by Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington, and Radionics and the Subtle Anatomy of Man by David Tansley. Astral Projection: A Record of Out of Body Experience by Oliver Fox was also useful. For specifics on chakras, I referred to Barbara Ann Brennan’s Hands of Light, Caroline Shola Arewa’s Opening to Spirit and Harish Johari’s Chakras.

  For religion, African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo by Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau and John S. Mbiti’s African Religions and Philosophy are must-haves of seminal importance.

  Dalian Adofo’s ‘Ancestral Voices: Esoteric African Knowledge’ documentary and workshops are also supremely insightful.

  Charmaine and Mark Simpson’s Black History Studies course reinvigorated my research in all aspects of the above. Their classes and lectures are highly recommended.

  Lastly, a bias: Reginald Crosley’s The Vodou Quantum Leap held me spellbound, and also helped with all stages of the writing process. Even now, with my novel completed, I find myself returning to its pages for his combination of lucid insights, intelligent thought and great style.

  I read many texts during the writing of this novel, and these are just a selection of the most useful. I hope they are helpful as beginning resources.

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, as always, I make special mention to the higher spirits, and the ancestors, in particular my grandmother Altina Denny and grandfather Enos Nolan. Nothing I’ve written so far was guided by your presence as much as this novel. I’m eternally grateful, and feel you in everything I do. Thanks to my family, Sharmila, Senenti and Nyali, who are more supportive than I could’ve wished for; Sharmila, by holding the fort while I worked, Senen, who helped me draw up my first draft Dinium maps, and Nya who gives amazing, encouraging hugs. Love you all. Thanks to my mum Marlene Denny for your continuous love and support throughout the years, Uncle Mark (yes, I stole and modified his name), Aunt Verma, Uncle Trevor for the architectural advice, and Aunt Linda. To the Denny family as a whole, those with us and passed on, at home and in Barbados, those I know and don’t, thanks for being there in spite of the distance between us.

  Thanks to all the people who kept me sane, and to Juliette, Naomi, Arvind and Sunil for the encouragement! To Jade Sullivan, what can I say? What a journey! You believed in this book when I’d given up hope. Thanks for the emails over the years that wouldn’t allow me to forget, and your joy when I told you it would finally
be published. To Yin Tsoi, who saw the earliest versions of this book, thank you so much for the love, kindness and space. To Crystal Mahey-Morgan and Jason Morgan, you guys are unbelievable! It’s so inspirational to see what you both do, and I’m the luckiest writer in the world to have people that just get it on my team! Words can never express what you’ve done for me. Shout out to my OWN IT! fam for the positive vibes and support, it really helped the process. Hannah Knowles, how lucky am I that you rescued this book from the attic of my old flat and back into my consciousness? Thank you for pushing me in your patient and gentle way, and making me far better than I was. I’m eternally grateful! Sherin Nicole, I truly appreciate all the Skype chats and emails, and thoughts about the work; it’s been invaluable. Ditto Kelvin Black, the only brother I’ve managed to sustain a WhatsApp chat with! I appreciate you for constantly making me think, and push harder. To Toyin Agbetu, who geeked out when I told him the concept for this novel, thank you for the supportive voicemail after you read the Harman Wallace story. To Charles Beckett and the Arts Council England, thank you for your generous support. Ian Marchant, who encouraged me so passionately. To Alex Mckenzie, for all our chats, and your drawings that helped me bring Dinium to life. And Nadine White, whose brilliant insights helped me escape a pretty deep writing hole. Thanks so much.

  Finally, thanks to Chileshe Chisanga and Keshini Naidoo for allowing me to borrow your names so long ago. I got there in the end!

  This novel has taken such a long time to write, I’m not sure I’ve remembered everyone’s involvement, as they should be. If I’ve missed any names, please forgive me. I love and appreciate you all, and hope-fully I’ll get to say it in person. Until soon.

  ‘[A] genre-defying, achingly literate phantasmagoria of a novel’

  Paul Beatty

  ‘Fiercely imaginative’

  Roxane Gay