If you’ve ever said “There aren’t enough African stories,” this issue will make you eat those words. Our 2020 Fall Issue is packed with fiction and poetry that proves African writing is building its own canon.
T.J. Benson’s “Listen” opens with a confession that destroys you in one breath. Kayode Faniyi’s “death is no parenthesis" shows how sex, faith, and grief collide in a single life. Aquilar Monnatlala’s “Arrhythmia” dares to say the quiet parts out loud about queer African domestic life. Nnamdi Anyadu’s “Guidelines for Dating an Alien Girl” is the speculative handbook you didn’t know you needed. Abu Bakr Sadiq’s “Ballads of Obliteration” refuses to let grief be neat or distant. Noella Moshi’s “A Separation in 7 Fragments” understands modern love too well.
This issue reminds us that our lives, in all their complexity, are enough. We don’t need to dilute them. We just need to tell them well. In this issue, they are told very well.