Terra incognita. Uncharted depths. Africa unknowable.

By Katie Reid on 11 March , 2015 • ( 1 )

Short Story Day Africa‘s second collection of short stories Terra Incognita is an anthology of new speculative fiction from Africa, featuring the top nineteen stories from SSDA’s 2014 competition, edited this year by Nerine Dorman.

This carefully curated collection is harvested from entries to the project’s annual short story competition, which in 2014 called for speculative fiction. The collection includes well-known and award-winning and authors Cat Hellisen, Diane Awerbuck and Gail Dendy, alongside emerging stars like Dilman Dila, Nick Mulgrew and Chinelo Onwaulu. The stories in the collection encompass all forms of speculative fiction, from literary magical realism to science fiction to dark horror, and pulsing through each is a new African paradigm. Here be vampires, tokoloshi, ghosts, unnatural obsessions and the unspeakable things that lurk beneath land and in the water.

Includes the winning story, “Leatherman” by Diane Awerbuck, with an introduction from Rachel Zadok. See the full contents here.

In other news, Short Story Day Africa has also had an impressive design revamp with a new website, designed by Nick Mulgrew who also designed the cover for this year’s anthology, Terra Incognita. There are plans afoot for SSDA to sell ebooks directly from the new website, with the money from the sales funding the phenomenal project that is SSDA 2015. (We first came across the project in its second year, 2013, producing instant what’s-not-to-love-and-support?)

You can order print copies of Terra Incognita from the marvellous African Books Collective in the UK. Book stores in South Africa to follow – stay in touch via @ShortStoryAFR, on Facebook, or SSDA Bookslive Blog.
Kindle UK LINK. Kindle USA LINK.