MA KẸKẸ, The Future Of African Flash Fiction

By Evidence Egwuono Adjarho

Literary magazines are not new to the African literary ecosystem. Tracing their history inevitably leads to Black Orpheus, widely regarded as the continent’s first major literary magazine which played a foundational role in shaping modern magazines. It was founded in 1957 by German editor Ulli Beier and later co-edited by Es’kia Mphahlele and Abiola Irele with Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe serving as editors at various points. Since then, African literary magazines have continued to emerge, with the twenty-first century witnessing a dramatic increase in their number. Digital publishing, social media, and reduced production costs have made it easier for new journals to appear and reach transnational audiences. Most contemporary African magazines publish a mix of short stories, poetry, reviews, and creative nonfiction. This preference could be partly shaped by existing literary economies. The Caine Prize for African Writing, for example, focuses on short fiction, while poetry enjoys sustained institutional support through numerous prizes and fellowships. Reviews and essays, though less frequently rewarded, remain central to literary discourse.

However, one form that has often been sidelined is Flash fiction. This marginalisation is nearly ironic, given that the form itself is far from new. In Africa, Flash fiction has always existed in practice, if not in name. Oral storytelling traditions frequently produced brief, self-contained stories meant to be told in a single sitting. Folktales such as The Tortoise and the Baboon from the San people, which run to roughly 800 words, align comfortably with contemporary definitions of flash fiction, typically placed between 750 and 1,500 words. Yet early African literary journals rarely embraced the form. Black Orpheus, for instance, favoured longer short stories, often spanning several pages. It was only in the twenty-first century that flash fiction rose to recognition within African literary magazines. While this marks a significant shift, the form remains largely underrepresented.

Gemspread Publishing officially began operations around 2022, starting with a five-member team led by the publisher Israel Peters. For a new publishing house, the central challenge was predictable: how to build trust, visibility, and legitimacy among African writers. Gemspread’s response was a monthly flash fiction contest with a single winner and a modest cash prize. The contest was warmly received, and this enthusiasm was hardly accidental. In a literary ecosystem where many opportunities are unpaid, a prize of 30 USD is appealing. The contest lowered barriers to entry with a word limit of 1,000 words and a clear prompt. Within a short time, the contest gained momentum. Announcements of winners circulated across blogs and social media, and the contest began to resemble one of Nigeria’s more visible flash fiction platforms.

Then in April 2023, Gemspread announced the transformation of the contest into Ma Kẹkẹ, a digital magazine. The name is drawn from the Etsako language of Edo State and translates to “Let us write”. This evolution was not merely nominal. Converting a contest into a magazine created a stable archive for published work and a recurring site for readers to return to. To date, Ma Kẹkẹ has published two issues: Women and Power (2023) and Inside Life (2025). The first issue appeared in both print and digital formats. I got a print edition through copies donated to the library in the department of English, where I served as librarian. Its cover design and production quality suggested significant financial investment but in retrospect, is also a likely contributor to the two-year gap between the issues. For a small and emerging magazine, such delays are not unusual.

Read together, Ma Kẹkẹ’s first two issues establish the magazine as one deeply invested in questions of power, violence, and survival. While Women and Power foregrounds gender as the primary axis through which power is negotiated, Inside Life broadens the frame, examining how violence becomes inherited, normalized, and morally entangling within domestic and communal spaces. The second issue extends the first’s concerns, shifting from who holds power to what power does to those forced to live under it.

Women and Power remains the magazine’s most conceptually sharp issue. It treats power as unstable and contested, resisted, and weaponized within patriarchal, colonial, religious, and social structures. Its greatest strength lies in its clarity of focus. Women are positioned as agents rather than symbols, and the Flash fiction form is used to compress long histories of oppression into moments of rupture. Many of the stories rely on implication and restraint, tasking readers to engage actively with what is left unsaid. The first story in the magazine, “A Father’s Embrace” addressed to “Papa,” for instance, collapses sexual violence, grief, and liberation into a single moment of catharsis. The story invites readers to understand that joy at death can function as survival rather than cruelty. Similarly, the allegory of the chained dog in “Chains” uses delayed freedom as a metaphor for political and personal captivity.

Inside Life expands Ma Kẹkẹ’s thematic ambition. The issue explores a moral universe shaped by domestic violence, poverty, religious hypocrisy, and filial obligation. Violence here is cumulative. It is learned, rationalized, and often enacted in the name of love or duty. Children and women recur as the most vulnerable inheritors of this violence, positioned perilously close to danger from an early age. Several stories effectively trace the proximity of childhood to trauma. In “Chasing Shadows” and “Hell’s Lounge”, curiosity and adolescent desire become pathways into terror. The use of second-person narration in “Chasing Shadows” implicates both the protagonist and the reader as equal perpetrators. Inside Life’s most compelling contributions examine moral ambiguity within family structures. “The Ice Within”, “Fatal Error”, and “Hamlet’s Ambition” present stories in which murder is framed as distorted care. Children act belligerently out of perceived responsibility. Yet this also reveals Inside Life’s principal weakness. The recurrence of similar narrative trajectory—abusive fathers, poisoned drinks, sacrificial motherhood—creates a degree of predictability. While repetition underscores the pervasiveness of domestic violence, it occasionally dulls the stories’ emotional impact on readers through its concentrated focus on familial tragedy.

When Ma Kẹkẹ launched its first creative writing workshop in January 2026, it made a strategic move and bold attempt to place itself at the heart of the African literary ecosystem. The magazine leaned heavily on established institutions to announce its seriousness, partnering with the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA), and the African University of Communication and Business. For a young publication, attracting over 150 submissions from across the continent for the Ma Keke short story contest x The Ama Ata Aidoo Award clearly shows that writers are eager for new spaces. Still, once the excitement of the launch settles, an important question remains: is Ma Kẹkẹ building something lasting, or relying too much on borrowed prestige?

The contest ended at the Ghana International Book Fair and awarded a prize of 500 USD to Ikechukwu Henry, the winner. More importantly, longlisted writers were invited into the creative writing workshop that included Chika Unigwe. Unigwe’s involvement gives Ma Kẹkẹ immediate credibility. Having chaired the 2024 Caine Prize and working as a creative writing professor in Georgia, she brings both experience and literary authority. For many new magazines, earning this level of confidence can take years. Ma Kẹkẹ has managed to achieve it early.

But fast recognition comes with its own risks. While Ma Kẹkẹ has been very successful at organizing high-profile events, its editorial personality is still taking shape. Without a clearer editorial direction, there is a danger that Ma Kẹkẹ becomes known mainly as a contest platform rather than as a magazine with a distinct voice especially because writers write to impress judges and win rather than to surprise or disturb readers. Over time, this can dull the impact of the magazine’s output.

Still, Ma Kẹkẹ’s early ambition should not be dismissed. The magazine has already proven that it can attract writers, mobilise attention, and create opportunities. If it can sharpen its editorial identity, it has the potential to become more than a well-connected newcomer.