Includes the 2021 and 2022 shortlisted AKO Caine Prize stories as
well as stories from the Caine Prize workshop
A woman who carries her fate and that of her community in her hair is
beguiled by the deceptive designs of Europeans out to colonise her
most prized possession. A man finds happiness in the reincarnation of
a lost love. A young woman risks her life for freedom through the
cultural practice of a human loan scheme.
Tales of sacrifice, love, freedom, self-discovery and loss fill the
pages of this larger-than-life tapestry of stories from across Africa
and its diaspora. Forged in a diversity of tempers and forms, these
stories range from the epistolary to the experimental, from
mysteries, noirs and political thrillers to speculative fiction and
futurism, and much more. In prose that moves from visual and lyrical
to gritty and visceral, these writers explore fate, memory, the
fragility of love and the duplicitous nature of human interactions.