Afrocentered Futurisms Celebrated This Year
We might have thought the pandemic was the worst of it, the most dystopian things could get. But our world is, increasingly, in a bad place right now. There’s Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan…. Even the most peaceful country in the world, Tanzania, excavated its own apocalypse, as the government lashed at Gen Zs who took to the streets to cry freedom. Then, just …Read More
Monsters and Other Tales of Humanity, Carla E. Dash (Meerkat Press 978-1-946154-91-0, $16.95, 122pp, tp) July 2025. Cover by Tricia Reeks.
Carla E. Dash’s Monsters and Other Tales of Humanity is a small collection that has impact with ten short stories, four of them original. True to its name, the stories are about the shifting faces of humanity and death, most unfolding in a narrative style of exposition and …Read More
Sinophagia, Xueting C. Ni, ed. (Solaris 978-1-83786-117-0, $16.99, 496pp, tp) September 2024.
Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror is a carefully curated anthology of contemporary Chinese horror. It’s a cultural fest that arrives with triggers warnings of corpses, childhood trauma, self-harm, torture, graphic violence, domestic violence, strangulation and, strangely, coercion/gaslighting – not commonly associated with horror, but typical of psychological abuse.
Translated and edited by Xueting C. Ni, Sinophagia: A …Read More
Children of Anguish and Anarchy, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt 978-1250171016, $22.99, 356pp, tp) June 2024.
As a reader new to Tomi Adeyemi, I hadn’t read the first two books in the Legacy of Orïsha trilogy, before approaching Children of Anguish and Anarchy. I don’t believe it affected my reading experience, because the novel, while part of a trilogy, clearly allows for new readers.
An eye-catching cover paves the way to …Read More
Captive: New Short Fiction from Africa, Helen Moffett & Rachel Zadok, eds.(Catalyst Press 978-1-94639-594-8, $19.99, 453pp, tp) May 2024. Cover by Megan Ross.
It’s refreshing to see a robust anthology of African talent featuring eleven writers from nine countries: Eswatini, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia. Captive: New Short Fiction from Africa is an initiative of Short Story Day Africa that celebrates the diversity of African …Read More
Where Rivers Go to Die, Dilman Dila (Rosarium 978-0-57836-803-0, $17.95, 204pp, tp) June 2023. Cover by Bizhan Khodabandeh.
I approached Dilman Dila’s Where Rivers Go to Die with excitement. I found the Afrocentric cover in bold ochre and clay inviting, and his film work had left me expecting his fiction to have a presence on the page that would keep me charmed. This is Dila’s second collection and first major …Read More
Infinite Constellations: An Anthology of Identity, Culture, and Speculative Conjunctions, Khadijah Queen & K. Ibura, eds. (University of Alabama Press/FC2 978-1-57366-900-9, $24.95, 286pp, tp) March 2023. Cover by danielle c. miles.
Some books speak to us louder than others. Perhaps they remind us of our childhood, or our loves and hurts, our longings, terrors and dreams. I tend to accept a book for review mostly if I think I’ll connect …Read More
Ex Marginalia: Essays from the Edges of Speculative Fiction, Chinelo Onwualu, ed. (Hydra House 978-1-957898-00-1, $19.95, 176pp, tp) June 2023. Cover by Ashe Samuels.
I could not look away from the startling cover of a naked, big-breasted brown woman with flowing ash hair wading, unseeing, across turquoise waters laden with flying fish. Where does one begin with Ex Marginalia, this powerfully introspective anthology of essays on writing from all manners …Read More
New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, Nisi Shawl, ed. (Solaris 978-1-78618-857-1, $16.99, 352pp, tp) March 2023. Cover by Yoshi Yoshitani.
Nisi Shawl’s New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color is a showcase anthology that features some big names and which enters the scene with big shoes to fill, following as it does hot on the heels of its World Fantasy, Locus, IGNYTE, and …Read More
