Charles Saunders (1946 – 2020) was one of two men who established a sub-genre of Sword & Sorcery that has come to be called Sword & Soul. The other was Samuel Delany (1942 – ). Saunders was born in the USA but moved to Canada as a conscientious objector after being drafted for Vietnam. He became a journalist and wrote a lot of nonfiction, much of it dealing with the lives of Blacks in Canada.

Around 1974, Saunders created a fictionalized Africa called Nyumbani and began writing S&S stories set there about a hero named Imaro. These were published in a small magazine but the first one was reprinted by Lin Carter in his 1975 edition of Year’s Best Fantasy. By 1981, some of these stories had been connected into novel form and were published as Imaro, by DAW books (Ken Kelly cover). Two more books followed, The Quest for Cush (1984) and The Trail of Bohu (1985), both with excellent and more appropriate-to-the-character covers by James Gurney.

DAW didn’t know how to market a black S&S hero like Imaro and initially the character was compared to Tarzan, probably because of the African connection. Imaro, however, is much more Conan than Tarzan, although he is a unique character and no “clonan.” DAW realized their error and made the better connection, quoting on the back of Imaro:

Imaro’s saga will be compared with that of Conan and other heroes of history and legend…

(An aside about this quote: Conan is implied to be a hero of ‘history and legend.’ That’s a little odd.)

Imaro III: The Trail of Bohu has a cover quote:

Imaro follows in the footsteps of Conan

I first discovered Imaro in an anthology I’ve mentioned before called Heroic Fantasy. This led me to the first Imaro novel, although it took a while to find #2 and #3. They make a nice, solid body of work.

In 2009, Saunders self-published a fourth Imaro novel called The Naama War, through Lulu. Unfortunately, I didn’t immediately pull the trigger to buy it and now it’s unavailable. I’ve shown the cover pic by Mshindo Kuumba above.

There’s also a short story collection called Nyumbani Tales set in Imaro’s world (below), but the copies I’ve seen are used ones for nearly 150 bucks.

Nyumbani Tales (MVmedia, May 19, 2017). Cover by Edison Moody

Updated versions of the first two Imaro novels (re-edited by Saunders) were published in the early 2000s, although I don’t have them (see below). Saunders also wrote stories about a woman warrior named Dossouye. I read one of these, which was quite good, but the collection is currently unavailable.

I remember hearing of Saunder’s death several months after it occurred and being shocked. His writing, fine as it was, had not brought him any comfortable financial situation.

Reprint editions of Imaro and Imaro 2: The Quest for Cush from
Night Shade Books (February 15, 2006, and January 2007). Covers by Vince Evans

He died in a small apartment with no phone or internet connection, and apparently with no one close enough to him to check on his whereabouts. We can at least hope he’ll be better remembered after his death than he seemingly was before.

---

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was a review of two S&S anthologies, both titled Warlocks and Warriors, edited by Donald M. Grant. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.