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Announcing Africa Risen, a New Anthology of African and Diasporic Speculative Fiction

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Announcing Africa Risen, a New Anthology of African and Diasporic Speculative Fiction

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Published on September 20, 2021

Announcing Africa Risen, a new anthology of African and Diasporic speculative fiction

Tordotcom Publishing is thrilled to announce that Emily Goldman has acquired World English rights to Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, a new anthology of African and Diasporic speculative fiction edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (whose novella “Ife-Iyoku, The Tale of Imadeyunuagbon” recently won the 2020 Otherwise Award), and Zelda Knight. The collection will be available in hardcover and ebook in Fall 2022.

This anthology is the direct descendant of Sheree Renée Thomas’s groundbreaking Dark Matter anthology series celebrating a hundred years of Black speculative fiction in the African Diaspora. Containing thirty-two original stories of fantasy, science fiction, and horror by African authors and authors of African descent living in the Diaspora who are among some of the genre’s most exciting voices, Africa Risen is a celebration of African storytelling and speculative literature, a tradition both ancient and new.

 

Table of Contents

  • “Introduction” by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, & Zelda Knight
  • “The Blue House” by Dilman Dila
  • “March Magic” by WC Dunlap
  • “IRL” by Steven Barnes
  • “The Deification of Igodo” by Joshua Omenga
  • “Mami Wataworks” by Russell Nichols
  • “Rear Mirror” by Nuzo Onoh
  • “Door Crashers” by Franka Zeph
  • “Lady Rainbow” by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
  • “A Dream of Electric Mothers” by Wole Talabi
  • “Simbi” by Sandra Jackson-Opoku
  • “Housewarming for a Lion Goddess” by Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga
  • “A Knight in Tunisia” by Alex Jennings
  • “The Devil Is Us” by Mirette Bahgat
  • “Cloud Mine” by Timi Odueso
  • “Ruler of the Rear Guard” by Maurice Broaddus
  • “Peeling Time (Deluxe Edition)” by Tlotlo Tsamaase
  • “The Sugar Mill” by Tobias S. Buckell
  • “The Carving of War” by Somto Ihezue Onyedikachi
  • “Ghost Ship” by Tananarive Due
  • “Liquid Twilight” by Ytasha L. Womack
  • “Once Upon a Time in 1967” by Oyedotun Damilola
  • “A Girl Crawls in a Dark Corner” by Alexis Brooks de Vita
  • “The Lady of the Yellow-Painted Library” by Tobi Ogundiran
  • “When the Mami Wata Met a Demon” by Moustapha Mbacké Diop
  • “The Papermakers” by Akua Lezli Hope
  • “A Soul of Small Places” by Mame Bougouma Diene and Woppa Diallo
  • “Air to Shape Lungs” by Shingai Njeri Kagunda
  • “Hanfo Driver” by Ada Nnadi
  • “Exiles of Witchery” by Ivana Akotowaa Ofori
  • “The Taloned Beast” by Chinelo Onwualu
  • “Star Watchers” by Danian Darrell Jerry
  • “Biscuit & Milk” by Dare Segun Falowo

Said co-editors Sherée Renee Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight:

Today, new audiences welcome storytelling from around the world, and there is an excitement and openness to exploring rich tales that speak to the diverse cultural heritage that is born from not only Africa’s broad and diverse diaspora, but from the continent of Africa itself. Africa Risen offers lovers of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other imaginative works new, original short stories from writers readers will love.

Said TDCP acquiring editor Emily Goldman:

Africa Risen features cyborgs at the end of the world, powerful and canny spirits, gods, and jinn, biting, hilarious cautionary tales, stories of resistance and uprisings, and so much more. It’s an incredible honor to be working with Sheree, Oghenechovwe, and Zelda on this anthology that both continues the legacy of Sheree’s earlier anthologies and forges a new one for the future of African speculative fiction.

***

Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, and editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science and the genius of Mississippi Delta culture. Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books, 2020), her fiction collection was a 2021 Finalist for the Locus Award, Ignyte Award, and World Fantasy Award for Year’s Best Fiction Collection. She is also the author of two hybrid collections, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press, 2016), longlisted for the 2016 Otherwise Award and honored with a Publishers Weekly Starred Review, and Shotgun Lullabies (Aqueduct, 2011). She edited the two-time World Fantasy-winning groundbreaking Black speculative fiction anthologies, Dark Matter and is the first to introduce W.E. B. Du Bois’s science fiction short stories and the first Black author to receive the award since its inception in 1975. Her work is widely anthologized and appears most recently in Marvel’s Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda edited by Jesse J. Holland (Titan, 2021), Slay: Tales of the Vampire Noire edited by Nicole Givens Kurtz, and The Big Book of Modern Fantasy edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (Vintage, 2020). She is the Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949 and is the Associate Editor of Obsidian, founded in 1975. She was recently honored as a 2020 World Fantasy Award Finalist in the Special Award – Professional category for her contributions to the genre. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter @blackpotmojo and Instagram @shereereneethomas.

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer and editor from Nigeria. He won the Nommo award for best short story for an African in 2019, the 2020 Otherwise award and the HWA diversity grant. He is a finalist in the Nebula, Locus, BSFA, BFA, Sturgeon, This Is Horror and Nommo awards. He co-edited the Dominion anthology, is guest editor at Interstellar Flight Press and editor of the first ever Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction anthology. His written works, have appeared and are forthcoming in Tor.com, NBC, Strange Horizons, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, Galaxy’s Edge and more.

Zelda Knight sells books by day at PRIDE BOOK CAFÉ, and writes sci-fi and fantasy romance at night. She’s also the publisher and editor-in-chief of AURELIA LEO, an independent Nebula Award-nominated press based in Louisville, Kentucky. Zelda co-edited Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora (AURELIA LEO, 2020), which has received critical acclaim. Keep in touch on social media @AuthorZKnight. Or, visit her website.

Africa Risen will be available from Tordotcom Publishing in 2022.

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