Many people think that Africa is a place that is far away, where black people live with few clothes who only know how to kill themselves or come to our comfortable countries to sell in blankets or work in the fields. That's all they know how to do. This is the image spread by the media, which generates an informed misinformation and a stereotype that is far from innocent. What better than to think that they are far away, that they are almost savages, that they are neither civilised nor cultured, and that, therefore, they are not very human. This makes it easier for us not to feel affected by their distant tragedies, by the theft of their raw materials, which continues to be perpetrated in their countries under puppet governments run by the great powers, by the diseases that kill them or the atrocities of which they are victims.
But let us not forget that Africa is 14.4 km from our Iberian Peninsula, closer than Getafe to Madrid or Sabadell to Barcelona. Let us not forget that Africa was the continent where the first human beings walked 3.7 million years ago. Let us not forget that a large part of the world's mineral resources is found in Africa, and that this mineral wealth of their continent has caused the extermination of entire ethnic groups due to the greed of Europeans, even nowadays. Even if we are told that this is tribal fighting. And above all, let us not forget that in Africa there are 2000 languages, even if almost none of them are written down, and an impressive oral literature.
Serie Negra (Black Series)
And it is this African oral literature that is the protagonist of our Serie Negra collection, which does not contain crime novels but the tales told by the people who live on the African continent. The publishing house Libros de las Malas Compañías (Bad Crowd Books) is committed to the publication of traditional tales from silenced populations, whose oral culture does not enjoy the prestige that our written culture does. The first book was El dragón que se comió el sol y otros cuentos de la Baja Casamance (The Dragon Who Ate the Sun and Other Tales from Lower Casamance), which was mainly produced in the municipal library of Oussouye in Senegal and in other localities of Lower Casamance: Enampore, Djimbering... The second book, Los cuentos del erizo y otros cuentos de las mujeres del Sáhara (The Tales of the Hedgehog and Other Tales of the Women of the Sahara), was produced mainly in the refugee camps in Tindouf. Both places, in addition to a fertile oral literature, have anti-personnel mines, sown in their land, once again, by the greed of the great powers and the inaction of the rest of the world.
We now have a book in progress with the stories of the albino people of Mozambique. In Kenya, Tanzania, Central African Republic, Malawi and Mozambique, and in other African countries (an albino girl was recently kidnapped and murdered in Mali) albinos are thought to be spirits and bring good luck. For this reason, they are kidnapped and mutilated, and their bodies are used to make amulets. But this custom, which we might think of as African savagery, has actually arisen from a manipulation of local sorcerers by those who deal in international organ trafficking to supply transplants in the first world. People who come from the first world to do business with the bodies of albinos. Once again, the greed of civilised countries has taken its toll on the most disadvantaged people on the African continent: albinos, who are also victims of visual problems and skin cancer, due to their poor skin protection.
We have listened to their stories, and with them we have illustrated. With all this we will make a book that will be called Los cuentos del conejo, y otros cuentos de la gente albina de Mozambique (The Rabbit's Tales, and other tales of the albino people of Mozambique.) We want to show that albino people are not spirits because they tell stories and the ability to tell stories and humour is the only thing that distinguishes us from other animals, and from spirits.
A lot of cloth
Now we dream of making books there, and, as they don't have paper, we are going to make them out of cloth. We are already working on the Senegal book, which will be the first book of a new collection: "Mucha tela" (A lot of cloth). We have made a rhythmic version of one of the stories from El dragón que se comió el sol (The dragon who ate the sun) for a cloth book, "El niño que siempre perdía el bastón" (The boy who always lost his cane), and a prototype in cloth. And a women's cooperative in La Casamance will sew it. We want to generate employment among the African female population and give value to their culture: to their stories, their fabrics and their artistic work. For this, we are working together with the girls of Totopo Brown.
We will also make cloth books in Mozambique with the albino population. For this purpose, old sewing machines have been collected and sent to Maputo (Mozambique) in the Centros de Mayores (Centres for the Elderly) in the district of Chamberí in Madrid. There the albino women will learn to sew books with a textile artist and storyteller, Bru Junça
And these books will become part of our editorial collection, so that the graphic imagination and narrative reaches your hands and so, that the albino people of Mozambique feel that there are many people who care about albinos. Not because they bring good luck but because they are people, human beings, who are important, who sew, who suffer and die, like any human being, who need to feel human and that we feel them human so that they don't disappear forever.
