Captive : new short fiction from Africa
Call Number
- FICTION CAPT (CEN)
Publication Information
South Africa : Short Story Day Africa ; El Paso, Texas : Catalyst Press LLC, 2024.
Physical Description
457 pages ; 22 cm
Summary
"In Captive, eleven new and emerging writers from Africa and the African Diaspora explore the identities that connect us, the obsessions that bewitch us, and the self-delusions that tear us apart. Passion and apathy, creation and destruction, honesty and deception--the blurred lines between these powerful forces are fundamental to the human condition. In three parts, the writers of Captive investigate these liminal spaces and rail against the boxes in which others seek to confine them, as writers, as Africans, and as humans. Journey from the fantastical Heaven’s Mouth where time stands still, to a London bus where a neurodiverse woman steals love to the songs of Tom Jones . . . flip the page to Ghana to examine a fertility fetish, or a post-apocalyptic Lesotho where sentient AI uses our emotions against us . . . visit the deceptively beautiful islands off the Tanzanian coast, where the ocean is always hungry, and women pay the price. Captive is a riot of imagination, a collision of worlds, and a testament to the shape-shifting nature of the soul."--Provided by publisher.
Contents
- Part one, claustrophobia & inescapable obsessions. The sting / Wednesday's delight / If the honey is sweet, why does the bee sting? / On chancellor's street / In Madam's house / Manifesting / The third commandment / The day the city wept / Girl's best friend / Good things to come / Heaven's mouth / Part two, metamorphosis, cycles and identity. Vanishing / I am what I am not / Exodus / Prayer times / Corpse driver / Grey / Mvelicanti's gift / Akua'ba / Elédè kekere (little pig) / Nankya's ghost / The river / Part three, self-awareness, illusion, delusion and deception. Sometimes you make me smile / Pasture / Sleight of hand / The darkness wins sometimes / N'ganga / Section 47 / Elsewhere / The girl with three faces / With open palms / The circle of history / Changes in ownership