Cordelia Salter

The Queen Idia’s Africa stories are “counter-factual fiction”. That means they describe a world that could have existed if things had taken a different turn. The premise for the world of Queen Idia’s Africa is that slavery and colonialism never happened, Africa is the rich global superpower and the West is poor. The opposite of what we have today.

The idea that Africa could not have been a global superpower is wrong because at many times during history Africa has produced advanced and sophisticated civilsations that have, at their time, been world leaders . Apart from the Pharoahs in Egypt, there are the Kush from Sudan, the Aksumite Kingdoms in Ethiopa and Great Zimbabwe to name a few. Their history, as well as the history of numerous other African cultures has all but been blotted out by what happened during slavery. Colonialism added a further blow as many countries adopted Western based curricula in their schools.

As for West Africa where the Queen Idia’s Africa stories are set, when the European traders arrived on the coast of West Africa they met as two different but equal cultures. If you read the trading records of the agents who were sent out to trade by the Royal African Company, Africans were treated with great respect. They went to a lot of trouble to find out what colours people liked, what type of beads, what cloth. Then they brought it to them whether it was silk from China or beads from Venice. Europeans saw Africa as a very wealthy market and wanted to find products they liked.Certainly West Africa was not considered underdeveloped then - it was a target market!