Fiction

New Short story from Abdifatah Shafat, Kenya/USA

We introduce a new story by Abdifatah Shafat, who explores issues of migration and return. His latest offering, “The Final Visit”, traces the experience of a returned son whose appreciation of the land he grew up has been changed by his stay overseas, yet he has never stopped caring about the home  things that matter…

Kagiso Senthufhe Reviews Henning Mankell’s ‘Daniel’

Kagiso ‘Dubla’ Senthufhe, esq., is a social researcher, freelance and creative-story writer based in the sleepy village of Metsimotlhabe in the outskirts of his hometown of Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. He graduated from the University of Botswana (‘UB-Basco’) with a BA degree in Sociology and Public Administration, in 1991, before spending a further two…

Our Life Stories in Sacramento, California

SACRAMENTO, CA: Cosumnes River College (CRC) and the Hart Senior Center are holding their seventh annual conference, “Our Life Stories”, on April 12 at the Hart Center. With classes on the craft of writing, this cross-generational conference features some of California’s top authors, writers and poets. The workshops and presentations will address how to write…

Nkiacha Atemnkeng’s Personal Response to “We Need New Names”

“My review [of We Need New Names] is a very funny one,” says Nkiacha Atemnkeng, “but I think the funniest novel in African literature ever also deserves a funny book review.” This is more than a review. Atemnkeng presents a personal response, in honour of his his role model, NoViolet Bulawayo, the author of one…

New Story by TJ Benson, Nigeria

TJ Benson, whose “Waiting for Beauty” we feature in hour fiction section,  is a male Nigerian short-story writer whose works have appeared in the 14th issue of the Sentinel Literary magazine, the Kalahari Review, Myne Whitman, Aspire.org.ng. He works as a columnist for the online magazine afrisphere.com.  He was published in the annual Contemporary Literary Review, India,  and he started…

Arabella Grayson Reviews “Saturday Comes” by Carine Fabius

With an insider’s intimacy, author Carine Fabius, in Saturday Comes: A Novel of Love and Vodou, dispels the religious, social and cultural stereotypes and myths shrouding her native Haiti in an atmospheric coming-of-age tale that pits the bourgeois Chenet family against the impoverished Saint Fleurs – their live-in cook Jizzeline and her young daughter Maya. Driven…

Flash Fiction: “Two Men at a Party” by Uche Peter Umez

The room throbbed with adults – some men dancing with their girls, others leaning intimately against the wall. Flavour was crooning about big arse on the music player. The air was a purple haze, warm, soothing, though it stank of thick fragrances The two friends were laughing hard over a joke, when Amaechi held Chukwudi’s…

Nkiacha Atemnkeng Reviews Chinelo Okparanta’s “Benji”

Nkiacha Atemnkeng is a Cameroonian writer and blogger at nkiachaatemnkeng.blogspot.com. His work has been published in three online literary journals, malawiwrite.org, www.africabookclub.com and www.thenewblackmagazine.com. He was shortlisted for the 2013 Mardibooks short story competition in London. A holder of a Curriculum Studies and Biology degree, he works as a Swissport Customer Service agent at the…

Moses Magadza Interviews Beaven Tapureta

Last time we featured Moses Magadza interviewing renowned Zimbabwean writer Chenjerai Hove. Now Magadza returns with an interview of another Zimbabwean writer, Beaven Tapureta, who says that too many people all over the world continue to turn their noses at writers, perpetuating the mistaken belief that they are essentially unemployed people. He says far from being part of…