Contemporary African Literature and Publishing: A Selection of Contemporary African Literary Fiction 2024-2025

African Ghost Short Stories by Nuzo Onoh (Foreword by); Divine Che Neba (Introduction by); Chinelo Onwualu (Associate Editor) Following the hugely successful Black Sci-Fi Short Storiesand Asian Ghost Short Stories, comes this deluxe edition of new African writing and tales rooted in ancient culture. This collection explores the deep-seated supernatural element in African storytelling - whether reaching back to the spirits, ancestors and ogres of folklore or the vibrantly modern ghosts of today's African horror. New and contemporary stories complement poignant folktales such as 'The Story of Takane' from Lesotho and 'The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull' from Nigeria. With a foreword by award-winning Nigerian-British writer Nuzo Onoh, an introduction by Prof. Divine Che Neba, and invaluable editorial support from writer and editor Chinelo Onwualu, this latest offering in the Flame Tree Gothic fantasy series delves into the fascinating heritage of African ghostly lore and literature, while allowing it to be reclaimed and retold by contemporary African voices. New, contemporary and notable writers featured are: Oluwaseyi Adebola, Fikayọmi Adeniyi, Michael Agugom, Eugen Bacon, Florence Adongo Bull, Tara Campbell, Rutendo Chichaya, Rutendo Chidzodzo, Mwenya S. Chikwa, Bekwele Chuku, Melody Cooper, Dilman Dila, Carol B. Duncan, Naomi Eselojor, Stanley Gazemba, Gabrielle Emem Harry, MaryAnn Ifeanacho, Achalugo Chioma Ilozumba, Amanda Ilozumba, Lucky Grace Isingizwe, Osahon Ize-Iyamu, B.T. Karuma, Kay Mabasa, Christopher Mlalazi, Keletso Mopai, Tariro Ndoro, Uchechukwu Nwaka, Ebere Obua, Eugene Odogwu, Okwiri Oduor, Ivana Akotowaa Ofori, Tobi Ogundiran, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Makena Onjerika, Hannah Onoguwe, Ephraim N. Orji, Anjali Patel, Peter K. Rothe, Nisi Shawl, Makhosi Sthembi, Tlotlo Tsamaase, Chisom Umeh, and Franka Zeph. These appear alongside classic work by Amos Tutuola and Thomas Mofolo, as well as folktales from around Africa. The Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Talescollections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories, the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

Innie Shadows by Olivia M. Coetzee (Translator) Brittle Paper 100 Notable African Books of 2024 A Literary Review of Canada Best Book Cover of 2024 A taut and unsparing novel about a community plagued by violence, drugs, corruption, and prejudice--but where love and justice prevail. The unidentifiable remains of a body are discovered in a field in Shadow Heights, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. Ley, the youngest detective at her precinct, is assigned the case and quickly begins her investigation. Soon after, Ley receives a phone call saying that Carl, a friend struggling with a meth addiction, has gone missing after being linked to the Drug King of Shadow Heights. Meanwhile, a local church group believe they are cleansing the area by burning sinners, starting with homosexuals. The search for Carl and the truth leads the reader through the vibrant lives of the residents of Shadow Heights. Violence, poverty, and shame plague the neighbourhood, but there is also love, acceptance, and hope to be found among friends and family in the shadows of everyday life. A pioneering work of fiction in which the dispossessed tell their own stories, Innie Shadows is the first novel to be translated from Kaaps, a dialect of Afrikaans that was until recently a spoken language only.

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A publishing event ten years in the making--a searing, exquisite new novel by the bestselling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists--the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, Elle, Oprah Daily, Readers Digest, The Seattle Times, LitHub, The Chicago Review of Books, BET, and Radio Times Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until--betrayed and brokenhearted--she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka's bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka's housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America--but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie's status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.

Theft (Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature) by Abdulrazak Gurnah In his first new novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize, a master storyteller captures a time of dizzying global change. At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma A sweeping, heart-racing, mystical novel about a university student in Lagos trying to save his brother, and himself, amid the chaos of Nigeria's civil war--a story of love, friendship, and personal triumph by the two-time Booker Prize finalist and "the heir to Chinua Achebe" (New York Times) "A wondrous novel."--Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All Stars, finalist for the National Book Award "Chigozie Obioma is that rare thing: an original. His world is a mix of the real and the folkloric, and his writing sounds like no one else's."--The Wall Street Journal Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and the New American Voices Award * Named a Best Book of the Year by The Boston Globe, The Economist, and Kirkus Reviews The first images of the vision are grainy--like something seen through wet glass. But slowly it clears, and there appears the figure of a man. Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, The Road to the Country is the epic story of a shy, bookish student haunted by long-held guilt who must go to war to free himself. When his younger brother disappears as the country explodes in civil war, Kunle must set out on an impossible rescue mission. Kunle's search for his brother becomes a journey of atonement that will see him conscripted into the breakaway Biafran army and forced to fight a war he hardly understands, all while navigating the prophecies of a local Seer, he who marks Kunle as an abami eda--one who will die and return to life. The story of a young man seeking redemption in a country on fire, Chigozie Obioma's novel is an odyssey of brotherhood, love, and unimaginable courage set during one of the most devastating conflicts in the history of Africa. Intertwining myth and realism into a thrilling, inspired, and emotionally powerful novel, The Road to the Country is the masterpiece of Chigozie Obioma, a writer Salman Rushdie calls "a major voice" in literature.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami NATIONAL BESTSELLER ● READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami--the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a "maestra of literary fiction" (NPR)--comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance. Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA's algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom. Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

A Kind of Madness by Uche Okonkwo A teenage girl from a poor family is dazzled by her rich, vivacious friend, but as the friend's behavior grows unstable and dangerous, she must decide whether to cover for her or risk telling the truth to get her the help she needs. A young woman and her mother bask in the envy of their neighbors when the woman receives an offer of marriage from the family of a doctor living in Belgium--though when the offer fails to materialize, that envy threatens to turn vicious, pitting them both against their community. And a lonely daughter finds herself wandering a village in eastern Nigeria in an ill-fated quest, struggling to come to terms with her mother's mental illness. Across ten stories, Uche Okonkwo's A Kind of Madness unravels the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, best friends, siblings, and more, marking the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in fiction.

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli Her life. Her rules. Finally. Anuri Chinasa has had enough. And really, who can blame her? She was the unwilling star of her stepmother's social media empire before "momfluencers" were even a thing. For years, Ophelia documented every birthday, every skinned knee, every milestone and meltdown for millions of strangers to fawn over and pick apart. Now, at twenty-five, Anuri is desperate to put her way-too-public past behind her and start living on her own terms. But it's not going so great. She can barely walk down the street without someone recognizing her, and the fraught relationship with her father has fallen apart. Then there's her PhD application (still unfinished) and her drinking problem (still going strong). When every detail of her childhood was so intensely scrutinized, how can she tell what she really wants? Still, Ophelia is never far away and has made it clear she won't go down without a fight. With Noelle, Anuri's five-year-old half sister now being forced down the same path, Anuri discovers she has a new mission in life... To take back control of the family narrative. Through biting wit and heartfelt introspection, this darkly humorous story dives deep into the deceptive allure of a picture-perfect existence, the overexposure of children in social media and the excitement of self-discovery.  

And So I Roar by Abi Daré A stunning, inspiring new novel from Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice When Tia accidentally overhears a whispered conversation between her mother--terminally ill and lying in a hospital bed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria--and her aunt, the repercussions will send her on a desperate quest to uncover a secret her mother has been hiding for nearly two decades. Back home in Lagos a few days later, Adunni, a plucky fourteen-year-old runaway, is lying awake in Tia's guest room. Having escaped from her rural village in a desperate bid to seek a better future, she's finally found refuge with Tia, who has helped her enroll in school. It's always been Adunni's dream to get an education, and she's bursting with excitement.    Suddenly, there's a horrible knocking at the front gate. . . . It's only the beginning of a harrowing ordeal that will see Tia forced to make a terrible choice between protecting Adunni or finally learning the truth behind the secret her mother has hidden from her. And Adunni will learn that her "louding voice," as she calls it, is more important than ever, as she must advocate to save not only herself but all the young women of her home village, Ikati.    If she succeeds, she may transform Ikati into a place where girls are allowed to claim the bright futures they deserve--and shout their stories to the world.

Blindspot in America by Elom K. Akoto Blindspot in America gives a provocative depiction of some of the realities immigrants face in the United States--racism and discrimination--but also their hopes and faith in a country that promises freedom and opportunity to all. Kamao is the son of a prominent Ghanaian academic and incumbent minister of health and is devoted to all that America symbolizes. After immigrating to the United States in pursuit of higher education and the American Dream, he becomes unwittingly entangled with American politics when he meets Lindsey McAdams, the daughter of an influential, anti-immigration senator. As the couple's feelings grow, so too does the senator's animosity toward Kamao. Despite support from fellow immigrants Lazo, Ayefumi, and Dania--who follow American Dreams of their own--Kamao soon finds himself drawn into intrigues hidden from the American public that make him question himself and his adopted country. When Kamao is implicated in a murder, Lindsey's loyalties are tested, Dania must decide if she is willing to risk her own future and security for the sake of justice, and Kamao discovers how far he'll go to fulfill his American Dream.

They Dream in Gold by Mai Sennaar Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize 2024 "Extraordinary . . . a powerful and poignant exploration of the African diaspora and global Black identity . . . This book moves like the storm Sennaar begins it with." --New York Times A Real Simple Best Book of 2024 * A Washington Post Best Book of Summer * A TIME Best Book of July A "luminous" (Tara Conklin) literary debut following two dreamers, one intercultural family, and the diasporic pursuit of home. When Bonnie and Mansour meet in New York in 1968--his piercing gaze in a downtown jazz club threatening to carry her away--their connection is undeniable. Both from fractured homes, with childhoods spent crossing the Atlantic, they quickly find peace with each other. And as Mansour's soaring Senegalese melodies continue to break new ground, keeping time with the sound of revolution and taking him and Bonnie from Paris to Rio and Switzerland, it seems as though happiness might finally be around the corner for them both. Then Mansour goes missing. His Spanish tour was only meant to last three weeks, but three months later, he and his band have not returned. In his absence, Bonnie reckons with her memories of him, and comes to understand that the hopes of so many women--her mother and grandmother; his mother, aunt, childhood friend--rest on her perseverance. Stirred by the life growing inside her, Bonnie puts a plan in action to find him. Spanning two decades and moving through the hotbeds of the African diaspora, They Dream in Gold is an epic yet intimate exploration of the migrant hunger for belonging and a powerful, intergenerational testament to our shared humanity, for lovers of Tara Stringfellow's Memphis and Abi Daré's The Girl with the Louding Voice. "Epic and hauntingly beautiful." ―Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai "Wholly original." ―Thao Thai "One of the most beautiful debuts I've ever read." ―Dawnie Walton

Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh A BBC BEST BOOK OF 2024 * A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK * Moonlight meets Purple Hibiscus in this coming of age novel about self-acceptance, sexual awakening, and first love set in a Nigeria on the verge of criminalizing same-sex relationships "Chukwuebuka Ibeh's writing has a certain delicacy to it, so wonderfully observant, and so beautiful." --Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Americanah Obiefuna has always been the black sheep of his family--sensitive where his father, Anozie, is pragmatic, a dancer where his brother, Ekene, is a natural athlete. But when Obiefuna's father witnesses an intimate moment between his teenage son and another boy, his deepest fears are confirmed, and Obiefuna is banished to boarding school. As he navigates his new school's strict hierarchy and unpredictable violence, Obiefuna both finds and hides who he truly is. Back home, his mother, Uzoamaka, must contend with the absence of her beloved son, her husband's cryptic reasons for sending him away, and the hard truths that they've all been hiding from. As Nigeria teeters on the brink of criminalizing same-sex relationships, Obiefuna's identity becomes more dangerous than ever before, and the life he wants drifts further out of reach. Set in post-military Nigeria and culminating in the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2013, Blessings is an elegant and exquisitely moving story that asks how to live freely in a country that forbids one's truest self, and what it takes for love to flourish despite it all.