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Including 2022 Caine Prize winning story "Five Years Next Sunday" by Idza Luhumyo, 2022 Nommo Award shortlisted story "Shelter" by Mzobi Haimbe and 2023 O'Henry Prize for Short Fiction winner "Mother" by Jacob M'hango
This genre-spanning anthology explores the many ways that we grow, adapt, and survive in the face of our ever-changing global realities. These evocative, often prescient, stories showcase new and emerging writers from across Africa to investigate many of the pressing issues of our time: climate change, pandemics, social upheaval, surveillance, and more.
In Disruption, authors from across Africa use their stories to explore the concept of change—environmental, political, and physical—and the power or impotence of the human race to innovate our way through it. From a post-apocalyptic African village in Innocent Ilo’s “Before We Die Unwritten,” to space colonization in Alithnayn Abdulkareem’s “Static,” to a mother’s attempt to save her infant from a dust storm in Mbozi Haimbe’s “Shelter,” Disruption illuminates change around and within, and our infallible capacity for hope amidst disaster. Facing our shared anxieties head on, these authors scrutinize assumptions and invent worlds that combine the fantastical with the probable, the colonial with the dystopian, and the intrepid with the powerless, in stories recognizing our collective future and our disparate present.
Disruption is the newest anthology from Short Story Day Africa, a non-profit organization established to develop and share the diversity of Africa’s voices through publishing and writing workshops.
“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
A “brilliant and diverse collection of stories”…. [Disruption] carries so much soul. Many of the stories are so visceral they played like a movie, a testament to the writers’ adroit understanding of how worldbuilding works.” —Isele Magazine
“Every year I look forward to the release 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
"The stories [in Disruption] showcase that the Africans are not helpless, passive individuals. They are adapting to this changing world. They are coming up with solutions to make their world even better." —Mphuthumi Ntabeni on FiveBooks, "The Best African Contemporary Writing"
"The beautiful and the ugly, grief and hope, warnings from our past and for our future—Disruption captures all of this. [...] 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."— Shelf Unbound
"The stories sprinkled throughout this collection demonstrate how people adapt to disruption in their lives, even when change seems dire. It's a perfect anthology for readers who like a little of the fantastical in their literature, but recognize how fiction often hits very close to home." —Sisters
“50 Notable African Books of 2021″—Brittle Paper
“60 Best Books of 2021″—Open Country Magazine
"Profound in so many aspects – touching on fear and obsession, sexualities and desire, cycles, times, seers and ancestral callings, the natural and artificial, how appearance and realities impact the environment and extractive relationships in the postcolony – it explores in a subtle way how the choices we make matter." —Africa in Words review of Idza Luhumyo's "Five Years Next Sunday", featured in Disruption
"The anthology is built around the theme of disruption, and more specifically around the ideas of shortage, disaster, and crisis. These recur again and again through the lens of each new story, building into a wonderfully diverse, often grim portrait of a world moving toward ruin or rebirth. [...] [A] wonderful project." —Locus Magazine
"[A] wonderful and diverse cross-section of stories from a variety of African countries... all bristling with energy and providing novel ways of seeing and learning to confront our global challenges." — Nick Wood, on Shepherd
1. ‘A Defiant Departure’ by MacSmart Ojiludu – Nigeria 2. ‘Another Zombie Story’ by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola – Nigeria 3. ‘Armando’s Virtuous Crime’ by Najwa Bin Shatwan translated into English by Sawad Hussain – Libya 4. ‘Before the Rains Came’ by Nadia Ahidjo-Iya – Cameroon 5. ‘Before We Die Unwritten’ by Innocent Ilo – Nigeria 6. ‘Between the Hard Earth and Dry Heaven’ by Melusi Nkomo – Zimbabwe 7. ‘Dɔrə's Song’ by Victor Forna – Sierra Leone 8. ‘Enough’ by Nicholas Dawn – South Africa 9. ‘The Fishtank Crab’ by Genna Gardini – South Africa 10. ‘The Girl Named Uku/phaza/mi/se/ka’ by Philisiwe Twijnstra – South Africa 11. ‘The Girl Who Always Laughed’ by Doreen Anyango – Uganda 12. ‘Kin’ by Masiyaleti Mbewe – Zambia 13. ‘Laatlammer’ by Julia Louw – South Africa 14. ‘Lycaon Pictus’ by Liam Brickhill – Zimbabwe 15. ‘The Mother’ by Jacob M’hango – Zambia 16. ‘Objects in the Mirror Are Stranger Than They Appear’ by Kevin Mogotsi – Botswana 17. ‘Shelter’ by Mbozi Haimbe – Zambia 18. ‘Five Years Next Sunday’ by Idza Luhumyo - Kenya 19. ‘Static’ by Alithnayn Abdulkareem – Nigeria 20. ‘Waiting to Die’ by Yefon Isabelle – Cameroon 21. ‘When the Levees Break’ by Edwin Okolo – Nigeria