Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa
Najwa Bin Shatwan author MacSmart Ojiludu author Kanyinsola Olorunnisola author Nadia Ahidjo-Iya author Jason Mykl Snyman editor Karina M Szczurek editor Rachel Zadok editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Catalyst Books
Published:21st Oct '21
£12.99
Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.
300 review copies (150 prepub, 150 postpub) sent to reviewers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, others. Available as an e-ARC on Edelweiss. Blog tour with book giveaways. Goodreads giveaway. We will seek features and reviews from newspapers, magazines, and journals. We will seek blurbs and endorsements from bestselling African and African diaspora authors including NoViolet Bulawayo, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Helen Oyeyemi, Masande Ntshanga, Akwaeke Emezi, and more. We will create a reading guide for book clubs and others interested in reading the book in a group setting. The reading guide will be printed in the book and will include a Q&A with the author. We will seek out book clubs who are interested in the book and offer the chance to win a SKYPE visit with the author. Promotion at book fairs and trade shows--ALA annual, ALA mid-winter, African Studies Association, etc. We will submit the book for all relevant awards. Promotion online via Catalyst's website, email newsletter, and social media (blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube) with author and publisher interviews, chats, and guest posts. Simultaneous e-book and print release. Readers Guide available.
Dissent, disease, disaster: introducing Disruption, a short story collection from new and emerging African writers, many for the first time on North American shelves.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
"A must-read. This book features a number of brilliant speculative pieces by African authors. [...] Learn their names, spread the word." —Arley Sorg, Lightspeed 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
- Short-listed for Caine Prize 2022
- Short-listed for Nommo Award 2022
ISBN: 9781946395573
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
260 pages