What is "imaro"

Imaro is a sword and sorcery novel written by Charles R. Saunders, and published by DAW Books in 1981. It may have been one of the first forays into the sword and sorcery genre by a black author. The novel is a collection of six short stories ("Mawanzo", "Turkhana Knives", "The Place of Stones", "Slaves of the Giant Kings", "Horror in the Black Hills", and "The City of Madness") which were originally published in Dark Fantasy, a fanzine published by Canadian comic book artist Gene Day during the 1970s.

Imaro was the first book in a proposed series of novels about the eponymous hero set in the fantasy world of Nyumbani, but a lawsuit by the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate over a poorly chosen cover quote (The Epic Novel of a Black Tarzan) caused a one-month delay in shipping as the books had to be reprinted which led to poor sales. Saunders wrote and had published two more books in the series, The Quest for Cush in 1984 and The Trail of Bohu in 1985.

In 2006 publishers Night Shade Books released an updated edition of Imaro. This new edition excludes "The Slaves of the Giant-Kings", which Saunders felt held too many parallels to the present day Rwandan Genocide. It was replaced by "The Afua", a new story.