Book Excerpt: The Alphabets of Africa by Abhay K.

An exclusive excerpt from The Alphabets of Africa by Abhay K. ( Vintage Classics, 2026).

ISBN: 9780143476542
Length : 280 Pages
MRP : ₹499.00

Pliny the Elder wrote ‘in Africa nemo destinat aliquid nisi praefatus Africam’, which scholars translate as ‘no one in Africa does anything without first calling on Africa’.

Africa is our home continent. Our human ancestors evolved there about 2,00,000 years ago and migrated to the rest of the world about 80,000 years ago. Each one of us, therefore, as Homo sapiens, is an African. We all carry African genes. Wherever we live, visiting Africa—our ancestral homeland—may be seen as a sacred act of pilgrimage, at least once in our lifetime.

Africa is a continent with its own rhythm. Its diversity is immense. To know about ourselves, we must learn more about Africa. I have widely read the works of African authors such as Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Nelson Mandela, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Binyavanga Wainaina, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kwame Dawes, Jumoke Verissimo and Nwatiglo Mawiyoo, among others. I have also engaged with recently published books such as Born in Blackness by Howard French and Africa Is Not a Country by Dipo Faloyin, as well as earlier works including Granta 48: Africa, edited by Bill Buford (1994); Poems of Black Africa, edited by Wole Soyinka; Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby; An AfricanHistory of Africa by Zeinab Badawi; and The Gates of Africa by Anthony Sattin.

I have visited Africa on several occasions and gained first-hand experience of its rich and diverse cultures. I have also benefited from regular updates on diverse aspects of Africa. You may wonder: What is it that we don’t know about Africa? It’s a continent with great biodiversity, where you go for a safari. But, in fact, the real answer to this question is—absolutely nothing. We must begin with this premise: That we do not know anything about Africa and its role in shaping our modern world.

If you relish Coca-Cola, the cola nuts come from Africa. If you drink coffee, it originates in Ethiopia. If you love jazz music, it originated among the African inhabitants of New Orleans. If you stop at a traffic light anywhere in the world, it was invented by an African-American, Garret Morgan. The cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries and vitamin B-12 comes from the Democratic

Republic of the Congo. The Narmer Palette, the world’s first historical document—a 5000-year-old engraved stone tablet showing the unification of the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt under one ruler, Narmer—comes from Africa. The world’s oldest known surviving peace treaty, between Ramses II and Ḫattušili III, was concluded in 1259 bce. The Amarna Letters are considered to be the world’s first diplomatic correspondence, between the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and the Mitanni king Tushratta. The Manden Charter, from thirteenth-century West Africa, is one of the oldest oral constitutions and proclaims social peace, the sanctity of human life, education, food security and the abolition of slave raiding.

Mansa Musa, the fourteenth-century ruler of the Mali Empire, is considered the richest king in world history because of his control of vast gold mines. General Hannibal crossed the Alps to invade Rome. Massinissa, the King of Numidia, turned North Africa into a major regional power in the Mediterranean. Malik Ambar, from Harar, Ethiopia, was taken to India as a slave, but he rose to become a great military leader and statesman and became the de facto ruler of the Ahmednagar Sultanate. He played a significant role in building Maratha power. He recruited Maratha soldiers, and his military strategies and administrative principles heavily influenced future Maratha leaders. Shaka Zulu united his people and transformed the Zulu kingdom into a powerful empire in southern Africa.

Great women from various parts of Africa truly inspire with their remarkable lives. Queen Kahina, the Berber queen, valiantly resisted the Arab invasion; Queen Njinga from Angola, fiercely fought the Portuguese invasion of her kingdom in the seventeenth century and used tact and diplomacy to be recognized as a sovereign queen by the Pope; Ethiopian Empress Tatyu Betul, successfully resisted the European colonization of Ethiopia and founded the modern city of Addis Ababa; Yaa Asantewaa led the Asante war against British colonialism in 1900, known as the War of the Golden Stool; and Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement of Africa and became the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

There are several inspiring heroes and heroines from Africa who inhabit these pages, whose lives have remained unsung in global history. King Lalibela got eleven rock-hewn churches carved in the city of Lalibela in Ethiopia. Africa also presents great stories of human interaction with other species, such as that of Ndakasi, a female gorilla who photobombed herself into a selfie and became world famous overnight, or Kibande, a mountain gorilla whose serene and calm face gained prominence after being featured in a winning photograph by Majed Ali at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards in 2021.

The book also introduces you to great African customs and traditions, and dance forms such as the Gerewol male beauty pageant in Chad and Niger, where young men compete to seduce young women; the Zaouli dance from the Ivory Coast, which honours feminine beauty and is marked by very fast and dexterous foot movements while the body remains still; and Umhlanga, the reed dance of Eswatini, which celebrates virginity and unity among young women.

The book also includes poems on great icons of Africa such as Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe, John Menard, Toussaint Louverture, Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩwa Thiong’o, Naguib Mahfouz, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Derek Walcott, Desmond Tutu, Bob Marley, among others.

Along with the well-known Egyptian pharaohs such as Ramesses the Great, Tutankhamun, and their famous royal consorts Nefertari, Nefertiti, Hatshepsut, and Hetepheres, the pharaohs from the Kush Kingdom (present-day Sudan)—such as Piankhi, Shabaka, Taharqa, and Tantamani—who ruled Egypt, find equal prominence.

You will also come across my own take on Ramesses the Great, which is a response to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s celebrated poem ‘Ozymandias’.

This poetry collection is my attempt to capture the astounding beauty and diversity of the continent. I could only dare to encapsulate the richness and immensity of Africa because of my earlier experience of writing poems on Latin America during my stay in Brazil and my travels across that continent from 2016 to 2019, published as The Alphabets of Latin America (Bloomsbury India, 2020).

Through The Alphabets of Africa, I invite you on a rewarding and enlightening poetic journey—not only across Africa’s geography but also through its history.

Toni Morrison

By Abhay K.

‘We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.’—Toni Morrison

Beloved, look at me

with your bluest eyes

sing me the song of Solomon

that takes me to the days of my childhood

I remember the landlord

setting our house on fire

while we were all inside

because we couldn’t pay the rent

and my parents laughing in response

at this monumental crudeness

rather than falling into despair

telling me stories, singing songs

and I learned from them

never to despair

the power of stories

to change our lives.

Wangari Maathai

By Abhay K.

I planted seven trees

for seven community leaders

encouraging women

to replenish the Earth

my husband

unable to control me

accused me of adultery

then came separation, divorce

contempt of court, imprisonment

I was told to drop my last name—

how lowly and vindictive can men be

when they fail to subdue a woman

but how invincible a woman can be

I drew a longer line

to cut my man short

adding an extra ‘a’ to my surname,

Taytu Betul

Abhay K.

After four failed marriages

I married Menelik-II

he became the emperor

and I, his beloved

counselling him on the matters of state,

helping him unify the land

I dabbled in Qene poetry

although politics was my first love

I sensed the scheme of colonials

to make my country a protectorate

and ousted them with fierce force

showing them my feminine power

I planted a new flower—Addis Ababa

and wove a fresh garland of Ethiopia

turning it into a modern nation

courtiers resented my ascent to power

and exiled me to a life of fasting and prayer

secluded in Mount Entoto, I died solitaire.

Taytu Betul (c. 1851–1918) was an influential Ethiopian empress and a key figure in resisting European colonialism during the late nineteenth century. She played a crucial role in the Ethiopian victory at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, a significant triumph against Italian forces. Beyond military leadership, she was also a founder of Addis Ababa, the modern Ethiopian capital, and actively shaped Ethiopian politics and culture.

Qene is a genre of improvised oral poetry from Ethiopia.

Mount Entoto is the highest peak on the Entoto Mountains, which overlooks the city of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

Excerpted with permission from the author and the publisher of The Alphabets of Africa by Abhay K. ( Vintage Classics, 2026).

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About the Book

The Alphabets of Africa is an ode to a continent that continues to define the human journey. Through time, space and memory, these poems map Africa, celebrating its vast and vibrant tapestry. From the splendour of its ancient civilization to the pulse of contemporary African cities, to inspiring icons and leaders, this book summons Africa in all its depth and glory. Drawn from Abhay K.’s travels across the continent, these poems are an invitation to shed the inherited stereotypes and see Africa afresh.

About the Author

Abhay K. is a writer, poet, editor and translator. His latest book Nalanda: How it Changed the World published by Penguin Random House, is a bestseller. He is the author of several poetry collections and the editor of The Book of Bihari Literature (HarperCollins India), The Bloomsbury Book of Great Indian Love Poems, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Great Indian Poems and CAPITALS. He is translator and editor of New Brazilian Poems (Ibis Libris, Rio). His poems have appeared in over 100 literary journals and magazines and have been translated into over a dozen languages. His ‘Earth Anthem’, has been translated into over 160 languages. He received the SAARC Literary Award 2013 and was invited to record his poems at the Library of Congress, Washington DC in 2018. His translation of Kalidasa’s Meghduta and Ritusamhara, both published by Bloomsbury India, received KLF Poetry Book of the Year Award 2020-2021. His translation of the first Magahi novel Fool Bahadur was published by Penguin Random House as a modern classic.