The Work Leader

The King's work leaders must be masters of the land, but the akasifi forest spirits refuse to acknowledge 15-year-old Kdano Luchenna's right to land mastery. Can Kdano convince the akasifi that he is true Luchenna blood or will the ancient forest spirits take back the farmlands that feed the nation? A story of courage, magic, custom, and law at many levels.

This story won a coveted Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fiction Fellowship. Although it is inspired by reading about the customs of the kingdom of Dahomey, "The Work Leader" is fiction, and fantasy at that, and makes no pretense of depicting actual events or people of the historical kingdom of Dahomey.