Iska Press| Publisher of African Books in English and in Translation

“To make it in life one has to learn to live with an unhappy heart.” A literary novel set in and around a contemporary South African township, The Hollow Sound of Lightweight Bodies follows Mxabanisi Bulawayo, a young crematorium worker who burns bodies, writes obituaries and stories for the dead, and watches his inherited home and family fall apart. Grounded in social realism—gangs, corrupt councillors, Boere farmers, informal insurance schemes, police violence—it is threaded with speculative and mythic elements: talking spirits, experimental “ikhosi” beings, and a swamp bound town where a spiritual scientist, Baba Bouka, tries to reshape life and death. The story charts the decline and death of Mxabanisi’s grandmother Masithathu, a beloved shebeen storyteller whose tales hold the township’s memory; his daily work among unclaimed and mutilated bodies at the Despatch Crematorium and graveyard; township life under economic precarity and racial tension; the breakdown of his own family under an abusive, hypocritical father, a hostile stepmother, and a half brother who displaces him; and the creation of new “spiritual technologies” in Kings Town, where ancestral spirits are domesticated into physical bodies and older beliefs are challenged. In a candid, restless first person voice that blends dark humour, philosophical reflection, township idiom, and moments of speculative and mythic imagery, The Hollow Sound of Lightweight Bodies asks: who is remembered and who is erased; what dignity and faith look like where both the living and the dead are treated as disposable; where home lies when a grandmother’s house is sold; when and why violence becomes ordinary; and how a man who lives among the dead can still find a story worth telling.

The Hollow Sound of Lightweight Bodies

“One pair to help you get dressed. One pair to bathe Bala and get him ready for school. One pair to feed the baby. And the last pair to cook and clean the house—all at the same time.” Mommy’s Many Arms is a children’s picture book for ages 3–7 about a busy mother who jokes that she wishes she were a spider or an octopus so she could have enough arms for everything she does in a day. As Mommy talks about getting Mina dressed, bathing Bala, feeding the baby, cooking, and cleaning, Mina turns her wish into a game of “magic time,” using a pencil as a wand to transform Mommy into “Mommy Spider” or “Mommy Octopus.” Bala joins in as “Boy Spider,” and their imaginative play slowly shifts into real help as the children decide to tidy toys and pitch in, just as they once helped Mommy bake a Christmas cake. Set during an ordinary day in the familiar spaces of a family home, this warm, humorous story shows how children’s small acts of help can make a big difference. Through playful scenes and simple, repetitive dialogue, Mommy’s Many Arms opens up gentle conversations about chores, empathy, responsibility, and the many ways families work together.

Mommy’s Many Arms

“Giving up on the tree, she sat close by me… I knew then that I had a friend and a protector in this vast wild land.” At five years old, Maasai boy Saitoti Ole Morijoi loses his way from his village in Kenya’s Maasai Mara and spends five days alone in the wild. A wild lioness follows him, sleeps beside him, and seems to protect him from other dangerous animals. Years later, Saitoti is a naturalist and safari guide, telling this true story and what it taught him about animals, his people, and survival. Narrated by Maasai naturalist and safari guide Saitoti Ole Morijoi, The Boy and the Lion is a nonfiction childhood survival story set in the plains, forests, rivers, and conservancies around the Mara River. The story gives readers clear, first-hand insight into animal behavior, Maasai cultural traditions, and the geography and ecology of the Maasai Mara, while exploring themes of nature, truth, survival, and conservation. Ideal for middle-grade readers and up, families, and classrooms.

The Boy and the Lion

“In Cairo she had lost a husband; in Freetown, she discovered she had stepped into a landscape where everyone was missing someone.” Mourning is a literary novel by Karen Williams set in the 1990s, moving between Cairo, Freetown, Sarajevo, Kailahun, rural Sierra Leone, and exile in Conakry. After Daniel, a journalist and war photographer, is killed in Cairo, his wife Marie travels to Freetown, where he once worked during Sierra Leone’s civil war. In a city of amputee camps, child soldiers, ruined buildings, and crowded beach bars full of peacekeepers and aid workers, she carries his camera and a small shrine from place to place, guided by Hassan, Daniel’s friend and fixer, who has his own history of escape and the loss of his brother. As Marie volunteers at an amputee camp, she realises she is being watched by a former child soldier whose gaze follows her across the city. When she chases him into a derelict building, she finds him hiding with Daniel’s black notebooks—field notes from massacres, an eight-year-old commander called “General Killquick,” and stories from Kailahun and Sarajevo. Through Daniel’s notebooks and figures like Hassan and J Com, a young man with war-damaged memory, Marie comes to see that her private grief is one strand in a larger web of violence, survival, and relationships—between husbands and wives, brothers, coworkers, and strangers bound by a single photograph or decision. Through shifting perspectives and locations, Mourning offers a close look at war reporting through local fixers and foreign correspondents, vivid depictions of postwar Freetown, and an examination of memory, complicity, and survivor’s guilt among journalists, survivors, and those left behind. Readers will find the story of a young widow leaving Cairo for war scarred Freetown after her husband’s killing; close, ground level views of war reporting in Sarajevo and Sierra Leone; depictions of amputee camps, child soldiers, and postwar city life in Freetown; interlinked narratives set in Cairo, Sarajevo, Kailahun, Freetown, and exile in Conakry; and a sustained exploration of grief, memory, complicity, and survivor’s guilt among those who witness violence and those who live with its aftermath.

Mourning

“This was not the Europe from the brochures. This was the Europe where you scrubbed its floors, carried its empties, and prayed your name stayed on the register.” Fineland is a contemporary novel about Msafiri, a bright young man from Dar es Salaam whose family pins its hopes on his university place in northern Finland. Expecting “Fineland” to be a land of ease and opportunity, he instead finds missing luggage, bitter cold, bureaucratic suspicion, racism, exploitative landlords, underpaid cleaning work, and bottle scavenging for cash. Moving between the heat of Tanzania and the ice and silence of small Finnish towns, the story follows Msafiri’s ties to Pendo, the girlfriend he leaves behind; his debts to family; dangerous bargains with fellow migrants like Yesaya; and his slow burn connection with Changying, a Chinese student who offers warmth but no simple future. Putting a human face on headlines about “international students” and “migrants,” Fineland shows how visas, unpaid rent, casual relationships, and everyday violence shape one man’s chances of survival abroad, and asks whether the sacrifice of home is ever worth what it costs.

Fineland

“Seek knowledge wherever you can find it, for it is the key to greatness. Remember that wealth may decrease, and authority or power may be lost, but knowledge is permanent.” In African Folktales for the Young at Heart: Hausa Tales of Wit, Wisdom, and Wonder, Abubakar Yusuf Ibrahim gathers classic Hausa tales and retells them as short, satisfying stories for modern readers. Animals speak, body parts argue, and ordinary villagers outwit those who would cheat or harm them. A hungry Hand learns what happens when Mosquito refuses to stay quiet; a beggar’s strange blessing tests a proud restaurant owner; goats outsmart a fearsome Hyena; a couple in the dreaded Rugu forest escape danger with the quick thinking name, “My name is Miriam, too.” Across these twenty tales, wit and foresight matter more than strength, and justice, gratitude, loyalty, and wisdom are put to the test. A tiny Spider defeats the tallest man in Hausaland by planning, not fighting; a grieving boy gathers “ten lessons” from animals about greed, loyalty, hard work, and the search for knowledge. Told in clear, vivid prose, these stories can be enjoyed for their humor and surprise or used to spark conversations about choices, consequences, and how people live together in markets, forests, royal courts, and village compounds across Hausaland. African Folktales for the Young at Heart collects 20 traditional Hausa stories from Northern Nigeria, retold in clear, engaging English for readers of all ages—children, families, and anyone curious about African folklore. These short, stand alone tales are ideal for reading aloud at home or in the classroom, sharing across generations, and introducing children and adults to one of West Africa’s richest storytelling traditions.

African Folktales for the Young at Heart

“They were the siblings walking many kilometers every morning to reach their distant school… And yet, these frail reeds were Africa’s most brilliant jewels.” The Child from Dindefello Falls: The Little Prince of Africa follows Sonlio, a boy from rural Senegal whose mother dies soon after a vaccination campaign reaches his village. Shaken by grief and distrust, he runs away into the night and begins a journey from waterfalls and baobab trees to cities, deserts, fishing villages, and a floating school, searching for what really happened—and how to live justly in a damaged world. On the road he meets Sun Hué, a shy Chinese girl whose father’s business reshapes African landscapes; fishermen and migrants facing empty seas and perilous crossings; talibé boys in harsh Quranic schools; journalists and doctors caught in the ethics of modern medicine; and villagers and activists replanting forests and reviving poisoned soil. He witnesses secretive vaccine shipments, industrial trawlers, and pesticide scarred fields, but also joins projects that bring back bees, trees, and hope. Set in a world of cell phones, global agribusiness, and international health campaigns, the novel links one village tragedy to larger questions: how medicines are made and used, how land and seas are treated, and how the young can respond without losing love and wonder. Through Sonlio’s friendships, grief, and visions—a Being of Light, a two headed creature, a speaking sea—simple acts like planting trees and picking up plastic stand beside mystical encounters.

The Child from Dindefello Falls

Maatla the Magnet is a wordless picture book about a lonely little magnet who is rejected by the others in his box, sets off through a child’s room, and finally finds a true friend, Thata, who accepts him just as he is. Told entirely through illustrations, it invites children to read emotions and events from the images and to talk about what they see. The book explores feeling left out and bullied, searching for belonging, the difference between “many followers” and one real friend, self acceptance, and kindness toward those who are excluded. As Maatla attracts nails, pins, coins, and buttons, adults can naturally introduce how magnets work and which materials they pull. Told entirely through expressive illustrations and perfect for children ages 3–7, Maatla the Magnet supports social emotional learning and early STEM: it’s ideal for storytime, role play about including others, simple magnet experiments, and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) discussions at home or in the classroom.

Maatla The Magnet

Lesedi’s Little Light is the story of a young girl in a close knit rural African village whose name means “light” in Setswana. Surrounded by the love of her mother and grandmother, Lesedi’s world is bright—until her mother falls ill and dies, plunging her into deep grief. Set in a contemporary village with simple homes, dirt paths, and a central well, the book follows Lesedi and her grandmother as they mourn together and slowly find a way forward. Aimed at children aged 4–8 and the adults who care for them—parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, and counsellors—it offers a gentle, age appropriate way to talk about death, grief, and healing. At its heart, the book is about a young girl who feels her world go dark after losing her mother, and about how love, memory, music, and community help her find her inner light again. With the patient support of her grandmother and the strength of their village community, Lesedi begins to name her feelings and understand that it is normal to feel overwhelming sadness. Through the familiar song “This Little Light of Mine,” Grandmother helps Lesedi reconnect with the light inside her, until she can once again sing and dance with her community by the village well. Read aloud, the story invites children to talk about how Lesedi feels, to share their own experiences, and to use a simple song as a comforting ritual. Gentle and honest, it gives families, classrooms, and counselling settings a practical tool for opening conversations about parental loss and hope, while warmly portraying everyday life in an African village.

Lesedi's Little Light

“Sex had forgotten why it had been invented. Pleasure wandered alone, like a god without a temple.” The New Eve is a dystopian novel about a future where human reproduction has been taken out of the body and handed over to the state. Set in a future city dominated by clinics, service centers, and rehabilitation camps, birth happens in artificial wombs, families have been abolished, and men and women live in strictly segregated societies that only meet under state supervision. In this world, Adam and Maneki are ordered to take part in the “Mixed Service,” a compulsory program where young men and women are paired for work, sex, and entertainment—but forbidden to feel love. When they fall for each other, their relationship becomes a crime against the social order. The New Eve explores what happens when sex is detached from reproduction, when love is declared an illness, and when the state claims the right to regulate not just bodies, but emotions. The novel asks whether love can survive when it has been scientifically explained away, medically treated, and politically outlawed. Through closely focused scenes interwoven with myths, scientific explanations, propaganda broadcasts, and the internal monologues of characters caught between doctrine and desire, readers are invited to reconsider what, if anything, makes love irreducibly human.

The New Eve

The Soot is a wordless picture book about a young girl in a modern African city who wakes to a clear morning and, over the course of a single day, watches her world darken under a cloud of pollution. Through expressive, panel like images, the book follows her growing understanding of what the “soot” is doing to her city and to the planet, and shows how she and her mother respond by planting a tree in their garden. Without a single written word, the story uses color, facial expressions, and visual metaphors to show how even a child can answer fear and grief with a concrete act of care for the Earth. Intended for children ages 4–8, families, educators, and librarians who want to introduce environmental issues—especially air pollution and climate awareness—in a gentle, hopeful way, The Soot presents a serious topic in a visually rich, child friendly way and models that even small hands can take meaningful action.

The Soot

“You are the tree that you brought with you, Zaiwulo. So plant it here, for it belongs to this place now, to the earth of this land far away from home.” The Emperor’s Son is a historical novel set in late nineteenth century West Africa, during the expansion and destruction of Samori Touré’s empire and the consolidation of French and British colonial rule. It follows Zaiwulo, a boy from the forest village of Haindi who is sent to study in the walled city of Musadu and then drawn into Samori’s marching courts, capitals, and battlefields. As he comes under the influence of the scholar Talata Haidarah and the empire builder Samori Touré, Zaiwulo is drawn into a world of books, war, and political upheaval. The story traces his journey from frightened outsider to a man who must choose between the life of a scholar and the demands of empire in a region reshaped by African rulers and advancing European powers. Through intimate family conflicts, debates among scholars and rulers, battle scenes, journeys through changing landscapes, and the recurring symbol of the flame tree that Zaiwulo plants and returns to over decades, the novel shows how African families, scholars, warriors, and traders experienced empire building and colonization from within. By illustrating Zaiwulo’s life, The Emperor’s Son explores the ways law and religion could be used both to protect and to terrorize, and how individuals tried to hold on to knowledge, dignity, and community amid upheaval.

The Emperor's Son

“I’m not in my world anymore.” The Civilization is a teen/YA fantasy about a girl caught between the modern world and an ancient, cursed kingdom that remembers her as a gift from the gods. Kadsa has spent years wandering across Africa with her grandfather, chasing stories of a buried homeland called Marut and the dull crystal he swears is their way back. When she slips away to reclaim her stolen identity as Skylar Labelle and find her mother in Toronto, she uncovers a missing child case with her own face at the centre—and a web of lies that began long before she could remember. Just as she starts to pull her life toward the ordinary—school, city streets, a future she chooses herself—the crystal opens a passage into Marut, a sun blasted kingdom trapped in perpetual darkness, ruled by a frail king, threatened by a witch, and waiting for a stranger it calls Abnr’s Gift. In Marut’s walled cities and shadow choked forests, Kadsa must decide who she is: the kidnapped Canadian girl hoping for a new start, or the young woman whose presence can break the Dark Enchantment that has twisted people into beasts, turned warriors into stone, and cut a whole world off from the light. To survive, she has to navigate palace politics, old gods, and the expectations of a hidden prince and a shapeshifted warrior who both believe her arrival changes everything. The Civilization explores what happens when Kadsa’s three worlds—her mother’s Toronto, her grandfather’s Marut, and the African roads between—collide and ask her to choose, told through a portal fantasy narrative that weaves together family drama, political intrigue, mythic cosmology, and survival adventure, told in accessible, character focused prose for teen readers.

The Civilization

“This is what life looks like, it said. Life. Stop this dance with death. Choose life.” Set on a contemporary South African vineyard, The Man with Yellow Hair follows Stella, a widowed vineyard owner holding together a family and a business as she cares for her oldest friend, Faye, through cancer and follows an old fiancé, Strawks, into psychiatric treatment, revisiting the shared past that binds and complicates them both. Through Stella’s reflective perspective, moving between past and present, the novel traces the two women from small town teenagers to middle aged survivors, exploring illness, grief, mental collapse and recovery, and the stubborn threads of love that keep people tied to one another, until the threads of Faye’s illness and Strawks’s breakdown meet in a shared attempt at recovery. Perfect for readers who enjoy character driven novels about friendship, family, illness, and rural life, The Man with Yellow Hair explores what it really means to stand by someone who is ill when you cannot make their choices for them, and how long friendships survive loss, resentment, and the demand to let others live, and sometimes die, on their own terms.

The Man With Yellow Hair

“The condemned were warehoused here to mark time and await execution… some who were awaiting judgment found themselves in this anteroom of death.” Waiting For Maria is a novel set in contemporary Nigeria, after military rule, in an isolated, crumbling colonial era prison named Freeman Fort that now serves as a maximum security death row facility. Through the intersecting lives of condemned women, their wardens, and the people who orbit the prison, the book examines capital punishment, domestic violence, corruption, faith, and the stubborn ways hope survives in the shadow of execution. It is both an intimate portrait of individual women and a broad look at a justice system that fails the poor, the abused, and the forgotten. The range of offences the women are charged with includes killing abusive spouses, armed robbery, medical cases that went wrong, and crimes entangled with poverty, patriarchy, and corruption. The novel is as interested in the failures of the police, courts, family, and religion around these crimes, as in the acts themselves. By showing the human cost of the death penalty: long delays; overcrowded “awaiting trial” cells; the emotional burden on inmates, wardens, and executioners; and public campaigns for abolition, Waiting For Maria presents arguments from all sides—religious, legal, political—while staying close to the women whose lives hang in the balance as they navigate life on death row.

Waiting for Maria

“If you give me the chance to return home, I will confess what I did. I will never cheat again.” The Finish Line is a short, illustrated chapter book about Mafoya, a talented but insecure young sprinter who cheats to win a race and is swept away by a whirlwind into a magical kingdom ruled by animals, then forced to run a series of races, and finally escapes by confronting her own dishonesty. Set mainly in the modern stadium and town of Okubaka Kingdom, and in a fantastical forest realm of talking animals, Iroko trees, and River Zizi called Musanga Kingdom, the story helps young readers think through temptation, peer pressure, and the cost of cutting corners. It shows that admitting the truth and taking responsibility can lead to growth, restored relationships, and a different kind of bravery. Blending school sports realism with fable, The Finish Line offers young readers a clear, story driven exploration of fairness and responsibility: what it means to admit wrongdoing, to accept the consequences, and to turn the same determination once used for cheating into courage and care for others.

The Finish Line

“Aid worker. Smuggler. Time bomb.” Truth is a Flightless Bird is a literary crime novel set in present day Nairobi. It follows Nice, a pregnant aid worker smuggling drugs into the city; Duncan, the pastor who tries to save her; Ciru, the traditional healer who holds her fate; and Toogood, the trafficker whose network binds them together. It is a tightly plotted, nuanced portrayal of characters caught between love, debt, faith, and survival in a rapidly changing East African city. Told in close third person, moving between the characters’ perspectives with richly detailed scenes that balance action, atmosphere, and interior life, Truth is a Flightless Bird asks what it means to tell the truth when every official story is bent, and how far love—for a child, a friend, a city, a god—can reach in a system designed to grind people down. It is a story about being pinned to the ground by history, geography, and power, and about the small, stubborn acts of courage that still take flight. The novel offers both page turning suspense and a thoughtful examination of power and complicity, making it a strong choice for lovers of literary crime and character driven thrillers and for anyone interested in contemporary African cities, and morally complex stories about faith and power.

Truth Is a Flightless Bird

“Freshly laid tar covered the road leading to Heaven’s Gate Cathedral from the Lekki-Epe Expressway… A giant billboard of Pastor Nick’s smiling face welcomed him at the parking lot. The text on the sign read: ‘This is the gate of heaven; walk in, all ye that seek Him." Believers and Hustlers is a social realist novel set in contemporary Lagos, Nigeria, where booming mega churches share the same streets as failing institutions and everyday hustles. It follows Ifenna, an idealistic journalist whose investigation into a suspicious death at a record breaking cathedral costs him his job, and Nkechi, the glamorous wife of a superstar pastor whose private doubts collide with public expectations. As they navigate media manipulation, religious spectacle, and economic precarity, both are forced to decide what truth is worth risking everything for. Told through intersecting storylines of faith, scandal, and survival—from Lagos traffic and roadside bribe points to red carpet banquets and televised crusades—the book asks how people keep their integrity when power and belief are for sale. Believers and Hustlers offers a close, character driven look at faith, power, and survival that resonates beyond Nigeria, showing how ordinary people live inside systems shaped by corruption, inequality, and religious spectacle—and what it costs to push back.

Believers and Hustlers

“These dunes of immaculate white sand, bathed in light, would be infinitely true and beautiful if it weren’t for the pollution of human beings… How did this universe, which has witnessed the birth of so many creatures, lose everything to preserve only these few men and their animals?” Barzakh: The Land In-Between is a speculative literary novel set across centuries in the Sahara, following Gara, a young man sold into a salt caravan, and Vala, the enslaved woman he loves. He is trafficked along trans Saharan routes, sold into servitude in Awdaghost, drawn into a planned slave rebellion, and later caught in waves of colonial and postcolonial violence. In the far future, fragments of his consciousness are decoded by scientists excavating Barzakh, who use his visions to search for the vanished city and confront the long afterlife of slavery, empire, and environmental ruin. Through slavery, rebellion, colonial violence, ecological collapse, and a future archaeological expedition, the book asks what remains of a human life—and of a civilization—after death, memory, and time have done their work. Blending historical realism with metaphysical fiction and told through first-person testimony “decoded” from myelin crystals, shifting into different eras and vantage points, Barzakh: The Land In-Between examines suffering, freedom, faith, and the fate of the desert itself, questioning what is owed to the non-human world that humans have outlived. Readers will be able to inhabit, in granular detail, the worlds of the Saharan caravans and their descendants; to see how slavery, belief, and empire shape both individual lives and landscapes; and to consider time, consciousness, and responsibility in a narrative that is at once historical, philosophical, and speculative.

Barzakh: The Land In-Between

Best of Isele Anthology is a wide-ranging anthology that gathers some of the most memorable work first published in Isele Magazine, bringing together short stories, essays, and poems that center African and diasporic lives. Each piece stands alone, yet recurring concerns—love, loss, justice, the body, and the idea of home—echo across the collection. Spanning late 20th and 21st century settings, the pieces move from a village in Akpulu haunted by pythons and forbidden love, to London and Lagos, Nairobi and Phoenix, Oklahoma and Vermont. Pieces are arranged to move across places and voices, creating a conversation between village myth and contemporary urban life, Africa and the diaspora, and intimate domestic scenes and public protest. Together, they trace how ordinary people—lovers, mothers, teachers, activists, migrants, queer characters, and children—live through grief, desire, injustice, and the search for home. Featuring a broad range of writers, emerging and established, from Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, South Africa, the United States, and the wider African diaspora, Best of Isele Anthology possesses a range of voice and form rooted in specificity, emotional depth, and political and social insight.

Best of Isele Anthology

“The only thing worse than hunger is the saudade.” Angola Is Wherever I Plant My Field is a collection of interlinked stories about Angolans living through and after war, colonialism, and rapid social change. It follows soldiers, refugees, street kids, migrant workers, minor officials, lovers, and loners as they try to survive, make money, fall in love, and understand who they are in a fractured country. Instead of a single campaign or hero, the book offers many viewpoints and a loose, episodic structure. It uses satire and allegory and keeps circling back to questions of voice, memory, and who gets to tell the story of Angola. The stories move from guerrilla camps and ruined villages to Luanda’s streets, Lisbon’s cafés, and imagined cities abroad. In each place, characters face hunger, corruption, desire, fear, and memory. Some try to become rich, some try to escape, some simply try to stay alive and keep their dignity. The tone mixes dark humor with grief, and the stories question fixed ideas about revolution, patriotism, race, and identity, showing how ordinary people improvise their lives under systems that rarely make sense. Spanning from roughly the 1960s liberation struggle through the height of the civil war and into the post war, oil rich era, Angola Is Wherever I Plant My Field gives a ground level sense of how history feels to people who are usually only numbers or footnotes. It chronicles lives shaped by improvisation, sarcasm, and stubborn hope, and will appeal to readers of contemporary African fiction, post colonial literature, and story collections that blend politics, irony, and intimate human drama.

Angola Is Wherever I Plant My Field