Open Country Mag is exclusively revealing the front cover of Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s debut novel Birth of Orisha, the first book in his planned Orisha Cycle trilogy, forthcoming from Caezik SF & Fantasy, an imprint of Arc Manor. The novel, which expands on his award-winning novella Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon, is scheduled for publication on 16 February 2027, during Black History Month.
The cover is illustrated by John Jennings, the New York Times bestselling artist, writer, scholar, and recipient of the Hugo, Eisner, and NAACP Image awards. Jennings is also a professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and the founder of Megascope, a graphic novel imprint at Abrams ComicArts. His work includes adaptations of Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Parable of the Sower, created alongside Damian Duffy.
Set in the near-far future, Birth of Orisha imagines an Africa devastated by nuclear war, where nearly all life has been destroyed. The people of Ife-Iyoku, formerly Ile-Ife, the birthplace of all life, are protected and transformed by the power of the place, evolving and gaining powers to survive. The place is protected and ringed by the forest of fears, which holds the radiation from reaching them, but also keeps them trapped in and separated from the rest of the world which has abandoned and forgotten them, as they begin to die out.
The novel develops the world first introduced in Ekpeki’s Ife-Iyoku, The Tale of Imadeyunuagbon, a novella that earned nominations for the Nebula, BSFA, and Sturgeon awards and won the Otherwise and Nommo awards. Birth of Orisha is the first of three planned books, followed by War of Orisha and Death of Orisha.
Ekpeki describes Birth of Orisha as an ArtæFACT, a new literary form developed specifically for the telling of this story. Further details about the form and its relationship to the novel are expected in forthcoming reveals.
The novel has already received recognition ahead of publication, making the shortlist for the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards from thousands of submissions. It was the only work by an African writer to make the shortlist.
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