Today, I had to go to Digital Action, the printers responsible for printing the Short Story Day Africa anthologies and most Karavan Press books, and spotted a small pile of Disruption copies – I could not resist and disrupted the ordinary order of things: I brought one copy home before the official release. The book should be ready for distribution next week. Get your copy as soon as you can – these stories are brilliant!

dis• rup • tion /dɪsˈrʌp.ʃən/ [noun] 

Disturbance or problems which interrupt an event, activity, or process.

This genre-spanning anthology explores the many ways that we grow, adapt, and survive in the face of our ever-changing global realities. In these evocative, often prescient, stories, new and emerging writers from across Africa investigate many of the pressing issues of our time: climate change, pandemics, social upheaval, surveillance, and more.

From a post-apocalyptic African village in Innocent Ilo’s “Before We Die Unwritten”, to space colonization in Alithnayn Abdulkareem’s “Static”, to a mother’s attempt to save her infant from a dust storm in Mbozi Haimbe’s “Shelter”, Disruption illuminates change around and within, and our infallible capacity for hope amidst disaster. Facing our shared anxieties head on, these authors scrutinize assumptions and invent worlds that combine the fantastical with the probable, the colonial with the dystopian, and the intrepid with the powerless, in stories recognizing our collective future and our disparate present.

Disruption is the newest anthology from Short Story Day Africa, a non-profit organization established to develop and share the diversity of Africa’s voices through publishing and writing workshops.

Published by Short Story Day Africa in SA and Catalyst Press in the US.