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Buchtipps - African Shorts / Kurzgeschichten

N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption. In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Nadia merkt in den Ferien in Kairo, wie fremd ihr die Heimat ihrer Mutter geworden ist. Ein zum Islam konvertierter Schotte fliegt nach Khartum, um seine Braut zu heiraten. Als ihr Onkel plötzlich stirbt, wird er mit den fremden Riten konfrontiert, die ihm mehr zu schaffen machen, als er geglaubt hatte. Farida muss sich gegen ihren strengen Vater durchsetzen, um in der Schule eine Brille tragen zu dürfen.

14 Erzählungen, wie Fotografien eines einzigartigen urbanen Raums. Figuren wie in einem Labyrinth, klammern sich mit aller Kraft ans Leben. Können sie mit einer schmerzhaften Vergangenheit abschließen oder wenigstens bruchstückhaft Antworten auf die Rätsel ihres Lebens finden? Die Stadt dient mal als Szenerie, in der sich Tragik und Komik verflechten. Dann wieder ist sie die Hauptfigur, ein Ort der Sehnsucht und Entwurzelung. Eine Welt ohne Orientierungspunkte, in der Werte und Sicherheiten unendlich vielen Möglichkeiten und ambivalenten Zugehörigkeitsgefühlen weichen.

Bolu Babalola finds the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology and rewrites them with incredible new detail and vivacity in this debut collection. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines iconic Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from countries that no longer exist in our world. A high-born Nigerian goddess feels beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious lover and longs to be truly seen.

An adoptee leverages her new parents to fast track her fortunes. A sword-wielding teenager navigates a crush at Comic-Con. A jaded PR man tries to spin a zombie outbreak in West Africa. A mother and daughter search for spiritual meaning in the midst of a family crisis. A water goddess sacrifices her power for the fisherman she loves.

The stories collected in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours are linked by more than the exquisitely winding prose of their creator: Helen Oyeyemi's ensemble cast of characters slip from the pages of their own stories only to surface in another. The reader is invited into a world of lost libraries and locked gardens, of marshlands where the drowned dead live and a city where all the clocks have stopped; students hone their skills at puppet school, the Homely Wench Society commits a guerrilla book-swap, and lovers exchange books and roses on St Jordi's Day.

Now in its 19th year, this collection brings together the five 2018 stories shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing, Africa's leading literary award. The prize was launched in 2000 to encourage and highlight the richness and diversity of African writing by bringing it to a wider audience internationally. The focus on the short story reflects the contemporary development of the African story-telling tradition.  

'One of the greatest writers of our time' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ngugi wa Thiong'o is renowned for his political novels and plays, yet he honed his craft as a short story writer. First published in 1975, Secret Lives and Other Stories brings together a range of Ngugi's political short stories. From tales of the meeting between magic and superstition, to stories about the modernising forces of colonialism, and the pervasive threat of nature, this collection celebrates the storytelling might of one of Africa's best-loved writers.

In our first-ever print and entirely nonfiction issue, we explore what it means to travel as an African. Herein are stories about passport privilege and air and road trips to destinations diverse and peculiar—from Douala, Lagos, Lisbon, through Berlin, Sylt, Maputo to Kousseri. A journey down memory lane with the inglorious history of an airline, and a cab driver’s unheralded analysis of Captain Marvel.

In her new collection of stories, award-winning New York Times Notable author Leila Aboulela offers us a rich tableau of life as an immigrant abroad, and the challenges of navigating assimilation and difference. Elsewhere, Home draws us ineluctably into the lives of her characters as they forge new identities and reshape old ones.