Africanfuturism Short Stories

Exploring new, contemporary and classic African short story writing envisaging futures, following the success of Black Sci-Fi and First Peoples Shared Stories.

With a Foreword by Minister Faust, an Introduction by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, and Chinelo Onwualu as Associate Editor. 

Building on our successful Black Sci-Fi Short Stories, African Ghost Short Stories, First Peoples Shared Stories and soon-to-publish Afrofuturism Short Stories, we give you Africanfuturism Short Stories, with fresh stories from open submissions and by invitation, plus some classics.

This is Africa, based in Kenya, defines Africanfuturism as located in "the African point of view, experience, culture, themes, and history with technology based in Africa". So, while it shares similarities with its sister title Afrofuturism Short Stories, this new collection focuses on stories that are set in and about Africa - whether that's a future Africa, an alternative Africa or a parallel Africa. The genre leans towards science fiction rather than fantasy, and towards positive scenarios and concepts, but of course is open to interpretation: the publication of both books offers a dialogue that explores tradition and influence, and fresh insights both about our past, and visions of our future.

The Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales collections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

Chinelo Onwualu (Associate Editor) is a queer Nigerian writer and editor living in Toronto. She's the co-host of Griots and Galaxies, a podcast about African speculative fiction and the people who write it, and co-founder of Omenana, a magazine of African speculative fiction. Her writing has been featured in several anthologies and magazines, including Slate, Uncanny and Strange Horizons. She's been nominated for the Locus Awards, the British Science Fiction Awards, and the Nommo Awards for African Speculative Fiction. Ex Marginalia, her collection of essays by authors of colour, is available now.

Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Introduction) is a Zimbabwean sarungano. Her debut short story collection Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky) won the Cornell University 2023 Philip Freund Prize for Creative Writing, shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin Prize for Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Collection. Her novel manuscript-in-progress was selected by George R.R. Martin for the Worldbuilder Scholarship. She earned her BA at Cornell University and her MFA at UMass Amherst. She is the Newhouse Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wellesley College and has taught at UMass Amherst, Clarion West online, and the Juniper Institute for Young Writers. She is the co-founder of the Voodoonauts Summer Fellowship for Black SFF writers. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Tin House Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, Clarion West, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute.

Minister Faust (Foreword) is an award-winning novelist and journalist, best known for his cult-classic novel The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and Locus Best First Novel Award, and Shrinking the Heroes, which won the Kindred Award and Philip K. Dick Special Citation. He offers online master classes in fiction-writing called Write Like a MF (wlamf.com). Currently, he's writing a series of interlocking eco-optimistic short stories for an eventual novel called Great Green Sahara, and completing an Afritopian antifascist piece called Shango, God of Thunder City.