Yemoja’s Anansi by Christal Clashing (RR)
It is its own new myth with its casting of Anansi as a young girl from an African village raided during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and water goddess Yemoja as characters, the latter gifting the former transmogrification as a means of surviving her capture. “It’s an Anansi tale, I dig it” I noted about 15 pages into reading. I am a sucker for an Anansi story and an Anansi re-imagining. While some of the images struck me as more of a fashion shoot and I found myself uncertain at times if the character being modelled by Christal was meant to be Anansi or Yemoja, which Christal said was intentional, I liked the story overall, especially when it found its most visual expression (“the locs appeared like multiple arms around her face”).
I thought the images on pages 6, 18, 20, 22, and 24 in particular were beautifully lit and magically realized.
The book works as an assertion that fear of water was not our original state but the state imposed on us by history, and a reclamation of our relationship with Africa.
Read more about Yemoja’s Anansi in CREATIVE SPACE #4 OF 2022 – RE-IMAGINING ANANSI
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jhohadli 
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