Birth of Orisha, the first book in Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s Afropantheology Trilogy, has been acquired by Caezik SF & Fantasy, an imprint of Arc Manor. 

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an award-winning speculative fiction writer and editor.  His stories cover issues of disability, class, inequality, as well as colonization and decolonization. He is also the first African-born writer to win a Nebula Award for his novelette, O2 Arena. Other awards Ekpeki has won include two Nommo Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, and an Otherwise Award, with several nominations.

On October 29th, 2025, Ekpeki took to X (formerly Twitter) to share the news of the acquisition. “They (Caezik SF & Fantasy) published my novelette O2 Arena,” he wrote in a thread, “which made me the first & only African-born writer to have won the Nebula award.” Also published by them was the anthology The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2021. The anthology made Ekpeki the first African editor to have won the World Fantasy Awards, and the only African and first Black editor alongside Sheree Renee Thomas to be nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Editor.

“My debut novel landing here feels like a homecoming, or even destiny.”

The Orisha Cycle trilogy is an expansion of Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s novella Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon. The book is set in the far future, where nuclear war has wiped out nearly all life in Africa. Survivors in Ile-Ife are altered by the power of the place, developing powers to survive. The novel explores African spirituality and Yoruba Cosmology, blending science fiction and posing questions about morality and identity. 

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