Original Short Stories by African Writers

New Writing form Africa 2009 is an anthology of 34 short stories fom the South African Centre of International Pen. The compilation was chosen from 827 stories submitted for the 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award, a short story completion of the 34 best entrants into a pan-African writing competition.

The stories from all over Africa s offered an amazing insight into the preoccupations of writers on the African continent.  In Where He Will Leave His Shoes ventures into a worn-out topic - the master-servant relationship - and navigates us through it by an unknown path, her insights and allusions skillfully rendered. The story is intensely felt, beautifully written, and makes you hungry for more.

The same applies to the runner-up story, A Visit to Dr Mamba by Andrew Salomon. The ease and humor with which Salomon presents his plot and characters are a joy to witness. One’s attitude to tokoloshes will never be the same after this memorable read.

The two stories which shared the third place, Nadia Davids’ The Visit and Ceridwen Dovey’s Survival Mechanism, come from more experienced writers who are no strangers to award-winning and impress once again with their skill, but fail to display their full potential. Davids tells a heart-wrenching story about a Muslim family torn apart by the calculated brutality of the apartheid security police in the late 1980s. Dovey’s entry sheds new light on the insecurities and dilemmas of everyday living in South Africa today.

No Match for Fanie Smith by Graham Ellis not only has a clever title and an intriguing plot twist, but also manages to illustrate the absurdities of race laws during apartheid. It is the story about two colored brothers of whom one can pass for white, and about the complications which arise when they both fall for the same woman. Bobby Jordan’s Situation Orange skillfully captures the attitudes that made the atrocities at the Angolan border possible. A stronger distinction in tone between contempt and glorification could have made its purpose clearer.

Stylistically, Spirit of Madala by Natasha Moodley is interesting to read, but I’m still not entirely sure what actually happens in the story. Alex Smith’s Soulmates, Kirsten Miller’s Only in Art, Kyne Nislev Bernstoff’s The Last Supper, and the four honourable mentions (Snapshots by NoViolet Mkha Bulawayo, In the Name of Peace by Naomi Nkealah, Bluette by Isabella Morris, and Pauline’s Ghost by Irene McCartney) show wonderful potential.

The anthology captures is a wide spectrum of experiences from across Africa, reflecting a continent full of stories waiting to be told and authors eager to be heard.

Ends