In The Bone River, debut author Nkereuwem Albert plunges readers into a Calabar unlike any you’ve seen, a city where blood remembers, gods whisper, and the past is never buried deep enough. The book, which Albert describes as “the honour of my life,” isn’t just a fantasy novel; it’s a haunting reimagining of Calabar as a living, breathing character, one that embodies both power and peril.
Now out and available to readers, The Bone River invites you to witness a world where the Four Houses rule the unseen, and the Secret Peace that has long kept order threatens to unravel. At its core, it’s a story of legacy, destiny, and the fragile balance between chaos and control, told through the eyes of two unforgettable women bound by history, hate, and the gods’ cruel games.
A Story Born from Names and Restlessness
Every great story begins with a spark. For Nkereuwem Albert, that spark was a collection of names that wouldn’t stop echoing in his head.
Okon Elderfire. Afem. Offiong the Bone Chief.
At the time, he was still in medical school in Calabar, juggling academic pressures and creative impulses. “I didn’t know who they were yet,” he recalls, “but I knew I wanted to write a fantasy story set in Calabar.” That simple decision would become the seed of The Bone River, a world built from curiosity, cultural memory, and an unrelenting love for storytelling.
When Nigeria’s Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) went on strike again, Albert found himself in a space between frustration and freedom. Writing, he says, became his lifeline: “I was very lost… but it gave me purpose.” Every day, he woke up and wrote, posting word counts online, letting the discipline of storytelling anchor him. That discipline carried him through his final year in medical school and eventually birthed a book that now stands as a testament to his creativity.
The City That Watches: Calabar as Character
To read The Bone River is to step into Calabar’s mythic underbelly, a place that exists between the tangible and the spiritual.
“Calabar is an old city,” Albert says, “with rich history, culture, and lore.” The book captures both its beauty and eeriness, the carved Nsibidi markings, the Ekpe parades, the old bakeries, and the ancient trees, and transforms them into narrative energy.
That tension between love and fear for the city is deliberate. “In Calabar, you’re always living through something supernatural,” Albert explains. Even mundane life hums with spiritual undercurrents. The novel channels that feeling of reverence and danger, of belonging to a city that remembers everything, and wraps it around its two protagonists: Heych Henshaw, a runaway freelancer pursued by a vengeful god, and Afem Aba Ye Duop, the heir to a throne of bone and ash.
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Power, Purpose, and the Price of Freedom
Afem, known as the Hand of Death, embodies the paradox at the heart of The Bone River: what does it mean to hold immense power but remain bound by invisible chains?
“She knows her power,” Albert says, “but she’s burdened by a purpose that pre-dates her birth.” Her story mirrors the struggle many young Africans face, balancing inherited expectations with the hunger for personal freedom. “We are burdened with the purpose of enacting great change,” Albert reflects, “but constantly made aware of our helplessness by the world unraveling around us. Reality is daunting, but do not forget: you are a maker and unmaker.”
Heych, on the other hand, represents return and reckoning. She’s a woman who swore never to come back to Calabar but must, because destiny, like blood, always calls you home. Through Heych’s reluctant return, Albert explores how place, memory, and fate intertwine: “Sometimes you have to go back to go forward,” he says. “Your destiny often waits on the other side of that confrontation.”
Together, Heych and Afem’s stories explore how two women, both powerful and wounded, navigate gods, ghosts, and politics in a city that demands sacrifice from everyone.
A Love Letter to Collaboration and Community
Although The Bone River is a deeply personal project, Albert insists it’s the product of many hands. From editors to illustrators to beta readers, collaboration shaped every layer of the story. “It is everyone’s baby,” he says with pride.
One of his earliest writing groups, fondly remembered as In the Mourning Hive, became his creative home. “Working together and growing with the people around you will always lead to amazing things,” he reflects. Through long document edits, conversations about world-building, and even shared laughter over Calabar street signs that inspired story names, The Bone River evolved from a rough idea into a polished, living world.
Even the visual storytelling, from the book’s cover art to its maps and glyphs, reflects that community energy. “Hours spent with the artist as she drew the glyphs, the map, the cover, and the characters… it was all magic,” Albert says, crediting illustrator Jessica Louis for helping the book’s mythos come alive.
Unapologetically African Fantasy
When asked what it means to write an “unapologetically African” story, Albert’s answer is both grounded and defiant: “It means staying true to myself and my community.”
Rather than mimicking Western fantasy tropes, he draws from Efik mythology, Calabar’s oral histories, and Nigerian urban life, weaving them seamlessly into speculative fiction. “Writing fantasy that drew from Efik culture and history afforded me an opportunity to make something unique,” he says, “to honor what I was writing from and still tell a story that felt like it could be happening just down the road.”
In doing so, The Bone River breaks literary boundaries, a modern African fantasy that doesn’t apologize for its roots or dilute its magic for global palatability. It stands proudly in the growing canon of Afro-speculative fiction, alongside the works of Nnedi Okorafor and Marlon James, while still sounding entirely like Nkereuwem Albert.
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