“An electric collection of stories that seethes with horror and beauty.” — Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls and Afterland

“The stories here are telling us disruption is and can be a catalyst for change. And that there is beauty in the many disruptions we face. This anthology runs ahead of us and we need, now more than ever, to catch up with the writers.”— Mukoma Wa Ngugi – Author and Associate Professor of Literatures in English, Cornell University

“In post-apocalyptic settings, through space colonization and fierce dust storms, the stories interrogate our fears, hopes, and response to the urgent issues and changes around us.” - Open Country, The 60 Notable Books of 2021

”Short Story Day Africa is known for discovering new talent in African literary spaces. Its latest short story collection features 21 authors from the continent exploring what it means to live in rapidly changing global conditions.” - Brittle Paper, 50 Notable African Books of 2021

“Every year I look forward to the release of Short Story Day Africa’s newest anthology, which brings together the newest writing from some of the most exhilarating and talented writers on the continent. The themed collections are exquisite, expansive, and this year, eerily prescient, featuring stories on climate change, pandemics, social change, surveillance, and space travel.” - Kelsey McFaul, Center for the Art of Translation, New African Literature to Read this Fall

“This collection carries so much soul. […] Disruption is an important addition to our libraries. Like a pot of pepper soup packed with an assortment of meat and fish, it is thoughtful in how it explores betrayal, power, intimacy, gender, and our hunger for emotional and physical succor during difficult times.” - Ukamaka Olisakwe, Isele Magazine

“The stories in this collection are a call to continue hoping. As long as we move forward and continue to survive on this earth, there is still time for healing, both for the earth and ourselves. But, in the meantime, if you’re in need for some levity, philosophising, or anything in between, consider picking up a copy of Disruption.” - Shelf Unbound

2020/21

Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa
Edited by Jason Mykl Snyman, Karina Szczurek and Rachel Zadok

OUT 7 September 2021 in all good bookstores.

Buy it: Catalyst Press | Amazon | The Book Lounge | Protea Distribution

“Disruption: [noun] Disturbance or problems which interrupt an event, activity, or process.”

The title and topic chosen for our seventh collection of stories from around Africa, decided before the world as we knew it changed, turned out to be eerily prescient. Drawn from the four corners of the continent, from Libya and Sierra Leone to Kenya and Botswana, these twenty-one stories serve up an imaginative feast, many unfolding the consequences of the environmental degradation of the planet.

But the contributors have not parroted the doom and gloom often found in dystopian or apocalyptic fiction. Instead, they have opted for wildly original narratives featuring sea monsters, zombies, time and space travel, cyborgs, immortals, gods and goddesses both benevolent and terrifying, and even a one-eyed octopus. This riot of colour and creativity offers fierce and rich allegories of colonial conquest and late capitalism, and probes patriarchal family and social structures with deft fingers.

 The reader will find comedy, the absurd, and the surreal in these pages, as well as lovingly drawn and often valedictory accounts of the natural world and its denizens. Above all, these stories tell of human connection in the face of impossibly difficult circumstances, providing much-needed comfort and inspiration.

Prepare to be disturbed, moved, and entertained. This is the disruption you’re really looking for.

Contents:

• “Static” Alithnayn Abdulkareem (Nigeria)

• “Before We Die Unwritten” Innocent Ilo (Nigeria)

• “Five Years Next Sunday” Idza Luhumyo (Kenya) Caine Prize Winner 2022

• “Laatlammer” J S Louw (South Africa)

• “Armando’s Virtuous Crime” Najwa Binshatwan translated by Sawad Hussain (Libya)

• “Waiting to Die” Yefon Isabelle  (Cameroon)

• “DƆrə’s Song” Victor Forna (Sierra Leone)

• “Objects in the Mirror Are Stranger Than They Appear” Kevin Mogotsi (Botswana)

• “Shelter” Mbozi Haimbe (Zambia)

• “Another Zombie Story” Kanyinsola Olorunnisola (Nigeria)

• “Lycaon Pictus” Liam Brickhill (Zimbabwe)

• “A Defiant Departure” MacSmart Ojiludu (Nigeria)

• “Before the Rains Came” Nadia Ahidjo (Cameroon)

• “The Girl Named Uku/phaza/mi/se/ka” Philisiwe Twijnstra (South Africa)

• “When the Levees Break” Edwin Okolo (Nigeria)

• “Between the Hard Earth and Dry Heaven” Melusi Nkomo (Zimbabwe)

• “Enough” Nicholas Dawn (South Africa)

• “The Mother” Jacob M’hango (Zambia) O’Henry Prize Winner

• “The Girl Who Laughed” Doreen Anyango (Nigeria)

• “Kin” Masiyaleti Mbewe (Zambia)

• “The Fish Tank Crab” Genna Gardini (South Africa)

Awards

Shortlisted for the GBAS Book Cover Design Awards 2021

Extracts

‘Happy City Hotel’ by Adam El Shalakany in The Johannesburg Review of Books

‘Mr Thompson’ by Noel Cheruto in The Johannesburg Review of Books

‘The Space(s) Between Us’ by Lester Walbrugh in The Johannesburg Review of Books

2019

Hotel Africa: New Short Fiction from Africa
Edited by Agazit Abate, Anne Moraa, Ope Adedeji, Karen Jennings & Helen Moffett

OUT November 2019 in all good bookstores

Buy it:  Loot.co.za | New Internationalist (UK & USA)  | Amazon Kindle 
Rate it: Please help us spread our stories by rating and reviewing on Amazon.

For this sixth collection of stories seeking the most innovative writing emerging from the continent, we asked for stories of Africa’s hotels: grand and shabby, real and imaginary, pulsating with life and abandoned. Here, it’s not just the walls that speak (and weep); the corridors, kitchens, lobbies, bars and beds all have stories to tell. But none more so than the array of characters jostling each other across these pages: tourists, cleaners, children, beggars, honeymooners, cooks, soldiers, those travelling hopefully.

Check in to meet captive maternal progenitors, a dragon-breathed gangster, a herd of mystical donkeys, competing chefs, a prosperity pastor, and more.

Check in to read stories of anonymous hookups, the pitfalls of nostalgia, surviving a colonial past, imagining astonishing futures.

Check in to hear a chorus of irresistible voices -- from Cameroon to Zambia, from Egypt to Malawi.

Check in to HOTEL AFRICA

Contents:

• ‘The Satans Inside My Jimmy’ by Harriet Anena (Uganda)

• ‘The Jollof Cook-off’ by Nkiacha Atemnkeng (Cameroon)

• ‘The Last Resident’ by Jayne Bauling (South Africa)

• ‘Mr Thompson’ by Noel Cheruto (Kenya)

• ‘The Layover’ by Anna Degenaar (South Africa)

• ‘A Miracle In Valhalla’ by Nnamdi Fred (Nigeria)

• ‘Of Birds and Bees’ by Davina Kawuma (Uganda)

• ‘Maintenance Check’ by Alinafe Malonje (Malawi)

• ‘Why Don’t You Live in the North?’ by Wamuwi Mbao (South Africa)

• ‘Slow Road to the Winburg Hotel’ by Paul Morris (South Africa)

• ‘The Snore Monitor’ by Chido Muchemwa (Zimbabwe)

• ‘Outside Riad Dahab’ by Chourouq Nasri (Morocco)

• ‘Broken English’ by Adorah Nworah (Nigeria)

• ‘The Tale of Two Sisters’ by Tariro Ndoro (Zimbabwe)

• ‘Door of No Return’ by Natasha Omokhodion-Banda (Zambia)

• ‘An Abundance of Lies’ by Faith Oneya (Kenya)

• ‘The Match’ by Troy Onyango (Kenya)

• ‘Supping at the Fountain of Lethe’ by Bryony Rheam (Zimbabwe)

• ‘Happy City Hotel’ by Adam El Shalakany (Egypt)

• ‘The Space(s) Between Us’ by Lester Walbrugh (South Africa)

• ‘Shithole’ by Michael Yee (South Africa)

Awards

“Sew my Mouth” by Cherrie Kandie shortlisted for the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing

“All of Our Lives” by Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor shortlisted for the 2018 Brittle Paper Award for Fiction

‘As I wrote and rewrote, I made new discoveries’—An exclusive interview with Short Story Day Africa Prize winner Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor

Press

“An embracing sweep, told in a first-person plural voice, of the lives of young men whose destinies are tied, from their childhoods to their changed, fought-for adulthoods, whose dreams are multiple and their routes to them illegal.” - Brittle Paper review of “All of Our Lives” by Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor

2018

ID: New Short Fiction from Africa
Edited by Nebila Abdulmelik, Otiene Owino & Helen Moffett

OUT June 2018 in all good bookstores

Buy it:  Loot.co.za | New Internationalist (UK & USA)  | Amazon Kindle 
Rate it: Please help us spread our stories by rating and reviewing on Amazon.

This powerful collection showcases the multiple ways in which African writers see themselves and their communities, and the depth, variety and innovation of their interpretations. From Benin to Ethiopia, from Morocco to South Africa, the stories here reveal uncomfortable and fascinating truths about who we are. In a world of rising nationalism and factionalism, of increasingly crude and reductive notions of identity, these stories insist on the complexity, intimacy and interconnectedness of African identities. Prepare to be amazed, challenged and enchanted.

Contents:

• Tochukwu Emmanuel Okafor, “All Our Lives” (Nigeria)

• Agazit Abate, “The Piano Player” (Ethiopia)

• Micheal Yee, “God Skin” (South Africa)

• Kharys Laue, “Plums” (South Africa)

• Michael Agugom, “Ibinabo” (Nigeria)

• Chourouq Nasri, “Anna” (Morroco)

• Lester Walbrugh, “The House on the Corner” (South Africa)

• Alithnayn Abdulkareem, “This Is What Waking Feels Like” (Nigeria)

• Éric Essono Tsimi, “One Brief Eruption of Madness” (Cameroon)

• Mpho Phalwane, “Per Annum” (South Africa)

• Cherrie Kandi, “Sew My Mouth” (Kenya)

• Harriet Anena, “Waiting” (Uganda)

• Innocent Chizaram Ilo, “Limbo” (Nigeria)

• Alexis Teyie, “Unblooming” (Kenya)

• Susan Newham-Blake, “The Things They Said” (South Africa)

• Farai Mudzingwa, “South of Samora” (Zimbabwe)

• Genna Gardini, “Transubstantiation” (South Africa)

• Heran T. Abate, “What We Could Have Been” (Ethiopia)

• Nadu Ologoudou, “Who We Were There, Who We Are Now” (Benin)

• Michelle K. Angwenyi, “The Georgraphy of Sunflowers” (Kenya)

Press

“A pungent immersion in a breaking family’s tragedy, through the eyes of a deceased daughter in the days up to her burial, that is also an exploration of mourning and changing and changed relationships.” - Brittle paper review of ‘Our Husband Grief’ by Christine Odeph

“The female sex organ is an incongruous character in this piece of fabulist fiction. The young woman’s curiosity to know her body part is intriguing and sustained. Innovative.” - Brittle paper review of “Involution,” by Stacy Hardy

“It is time, also, to salute the unrivaled work that Short Story Day Africa Prize is doing for short fiction on the continent. […] The collective has left its mark on the 2010s literary scene, and we are all the better for it.” - Otosirieze Obi-Young, Brittle Paper

“TJ Benson’s “Tea” is […] is told with cinematic range, in plainer prose that does not hide its movie influences, and, in its multicultural shot of human-trafficking, becomes a critique of the human need for, and adaptation to, communication.” - Otosirieze Obi-Young reviews “Tea” by TJ Benson for Brittle Paper

“Megan Ross’ “Farang,” […] peaks in style and texture. Here is an aching romance, through intimacy and companionship and pregnancy, a reflection on love and language, foreknowledge and inevitability, in prose so lyrical and controlled it moves like a spring.” - Otosirieze Obi-Young reviews “Farang” by Megan Ross for Brittle Paper

2017

Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa
Edited by Efemia Chela, Bongani Kona& Helen Moffett

OUT March  2017 in all good bookstores in South Africa
OUT in September 2017 in the rest of the world

Buy it:  Loot.co.za | New Internationalist (UK & USA)  | Amazon Kindle 
Rate it: Please help us spread our stories by rating and reviewing on Goodreads and Amazon.

The story of Africa is the story of souls migrating. Twenty-one of Africa's finest writers bring fresh urgent perspectives to one of our most profound phenomena, and the basis of all our greatest stories. 

Contents:

• Mirette Bhagat Eskaros ,"Exodus" (Egypt)

• Stacy Hardy, "Involution" (SA)

• Okafor Tochukwu , "Leaving" (Nigeria)

• Lauri Kubuitsile, "Movement in the Key of Love " (Botswana)

• Blaize Kaye, "Diaspora Electronica" (SA)

• Umar Turaki, "Naming" (Nigeria)

• Aba Asibon, "Things We Found North of the Sunset" (Ghana)

• Mary Ononokpono, "Ayanti" (Nigeria)

• Gamu Chamisa, "Bleed" (Zimbabwe)

• Fred Khumalo, "This Bus Is Not Full!" (SA)

• Mignotte Mekuria, "Of Fire" (Ethiopia)

• Nyarsipi Odeph, "My Sister’s Husband" (Kenya)

• Arja Salafranca, "The Castle" (SA)

• Francis Aubee, "Teii mom, win rekk lah" (The Gambia)

• Sibongile Fisher, "A Door Ajar" (SA) ssda prize winner

• Megan Ross, "Farang" (SA)

• Anne Moraa, "Lymph" (Kenya)

• TJ Benson, "Tea" (Nigeria)

• Edwin Okolo, "The Fates" (Nigeria)

• Karen Jennings, "Keeping" (SA)

• Izda Luhumyo, "The Impossibility of Home" (Kenya)

Awards

‘Involution,’ by Stacy Hardy wins the 2018 Brittle Paper Award for Fiction and is shortlisted for the 2018 Caine Prize

‘Our Husband Grief’ by Christine Odeph shortlisted for the 2018 Brittle Paper Award for Fiction.

‘Farang’ by Megan Ross wins the 2017 Brittle Paper Award for Fiction

2015
Water: New Short Fiction from Africa
Edited by Nick Mulgrew & Karina Szczurek

OUT NOW in all good bookstores in South Africa
OUT in April 2016 in the rest of the world

Buy it: Loot.co.za  |   Amazon Kindle .
Rate it: Please help us spread our stories by rating and reviewing on Goodreads and Amazon.

The tidemark of African fiction. A deluge of new short stories on murder, magic, family, war and water from twenty-one of Africa's finest writers. 

Contents:

• Alex Latimer, “A Fierce Symmetry”

• Donald Molosi, “Beetroot Salad”

• Wairimu Muriithi, “Love Like Blue”

• Christine Coates, “How We Look Now”

• Mark Mngomezulu, “Urgency”

• Cat Hellisen, “The Worme Bridge”

• Louis Ogbere, “Were”

• Efemia Chela, “The Lake Retba Murder”

• Louis Greenberg, “Oasis”

• Chido Muchemwa, “Finding Mermaids”

• Wesley Macheso, “This Land Is Mine”

• Siyanda Mohutsiwa, “And Then We Disappeared Into Some Guy’s Car”

• Alexis Teyie, “Mama Boi”

• Mary Okon Ononokpono, “Inyang”

• Dayo Ntwari, “Mother’s Love”

• Thabo Jijana, “Native Mayonnaise”

• Pede Hollist, “The Tale of the Three Water Carriers”

• Fred Khumalo, “Water No Get Enemy”

• Megan Ross, “Traces”

• Florence Onyango, “Nyar Nam”

• Mark Winkler, “Ink”

Press

“Terra Incognita is not only the most accomplished of the African SF anthologies published so far but also undoubtedly the most literary. […] [The stories in the book] articulate the relationship between globalized first-world culture, with its expectations of fiction, genre, and style, and various African localities, with their hardly pristine cultural specificities.” - Mark Bould, Los Angeles Review of Books

“[One of] the best anthologies of new fiction I’ve read in some time.” - Aaron Bady, The New Inquiry

2014
Terra Incognita
Edited by Nerine Dorman

Buy it: Exclusives | Amazon Kindle or contact our distributor Xavier Nagel Agencies

Terra incognita. Uncharted depths. Africa unknowable. Nineteen new short speculative stories from the fringes and hidden worlds of Africa.

Contents:

• Diane Awerbuck, "Leatherman"

• Toby Bennett, "Caverns Measureless to Man"

• Pwaangulongii Benrawangya, "I Am Sitting Here Looking at a Graveyard"

• Tiah Beautement, "Hands"

• Gail Dendy, "Marion's Mirror"

• Dilman Dila, "How My Father Became a God"

• Kerstin Hall, "In the Water"

• Cat Hellisen, "Mouse Teeth"

• Mishka Hoosen, "Spirit of the Dead Keep Watch"

• Nick Mulgrew, "Stations"

• Mary Okon Ononokpono, "Editöngö"

• Chinelo Onwualu, "CJ"

• Jekwu Ozoemene, "There is Something That Ogbu-Ojah Didn’t Tell Us"

• Sylvia Schlettwein, "Ape Shit"

• Jason Mykl Snyman, "What if You Slept?"

• Phillip Steyn, "Esomnesia"

• Brendan Ward, "The Lacuna"

• Sarah Jane Woodward, "The Carthagion"

• Sese Yane, "The Corpse"

2013
Feast, Famine & Potluck
Edited by Karen Jennings

Buy it:  Smashwords | Amazon Kindle or contact our distributor Xavier Nagel Agencies

A dazzling collection from across the African continent and diaspora – here Short Story Day Africa has assembled the best nineteen stories from their 2013 competition. 

Food is at the centre of stories from authors emerging and established, blending the secular, the supernatural, the old and the new in a spectacular celebration of short fiction. Civil wars, evictions, vacations, feasts and romances – the stories we bring to our tables that bring us together and tear us apart. 

Contents:

• Okwiri Oduor, "My Father's Head" (winner of the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing)

• Jayne Bauling, "Choke"

• Efemia Chela, "Chicken" (shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing)

• Tarryn-Anne Anderson, "Bloodline"

• Dilman Dila, "The Broken Pot"

• Katherine Graham, "Heaven Scent"

• Manu Herbstein, "The Dibbuk"

• Catherine Jarvis, "44 Boston Heights, Yeoville"

• Bryen Walter Kangwagye, "A Serving of Honey"

• Lauri Kubuitsile, "Black Coffee without Sugar"

• Greg Lazarus, "Where Is The Tenderness?"

• Abdul-Malik Sibabalwe Oscar Masinyana, "The House of the Apostate"

• Nick Mulgrew, "Ponta do Ouro" (longlisted for the Twentyin20 Project)

• Chukwumeka Njoku, "Mogadishu Maybe"

• Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunga, "Looking"

• Achiro Patricia Olwoch, "On Time"

• Michelle Preen, "Burning Woman"

• Ramonez Ramirez, "Hyena"

• Hamilton Wende, "Fizz Pops"

2014
Follow the Road
Edited by Maíre Fisher and Tiah Beautement

Buy it: Loot.co.za

Follow the Road is the second collection of children’s short stories to be published by Short Story Day Africa. Collected from their 2014 children’s creative writing competition, here are twenty-seven refreshing takes on the science fiction and fantasy genres from minds wide open to possibility. From time travelling parents to sparkly dragons in the Drakensberg mountains, these are African stories from Africa’s children. This is science fiction that will challenge the perception of what children are capable of thinking and creating.

2013
Rapunzel is Dead
Edited by Tiah Beautement and Na'eemah Masoet
Illustrated by Cat Hellisen

Buy it:  Smashwords | Amazon Kindle

A vibrant collection of stories by Africa’s younger writers – here Short Story Day Africa has assembled the best seventeen stories from their 2013 competition.