ZamaShort #11 ‘Gold-Plated Boy’ by Hussani Abdulrahim

Mama Blessing, a struggling buka road-side restaurant owner, is promised riches by the diviner Mallam Idi if she acquires a gold-plated android boy. This—a seemingly impossible task given the fortune it will cost—sets Mama Blessing down a path that will irrevocably change her, and her family’s, life.

“Abdulrahim is a writer of rare imaginative force. In ‘Gold-Plated Boy’, he unites technology, ambition, envy, oppression, and human frailty into a tale as dazzling as it is unsettling. His storytelling is original. He reminds us that the most astonishing machinery is still the human imagination, and in his hands, it is limitless.” — Nana Sule, author of Not So Terrible People.

Hussani Abdulrahim is a Nigerian writer. He has a degree in Pure Chemistry from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto. Hussani’s short story ‘Arewa Boys’, which won the Toyin Falola Prize (2022), was shortlisted for the 2024 ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award. He won the 2023 Writivism Short Story Prize, Ibua Journal’s 2023 Bold Call, and the 2016 Green Author Prize. He has been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Afritondo Prize, Boston Review’s Aura Estrada Short Fiction Contest, and the BWR Summer Fiction Contest. He was a participant in the Flame Tree Writers’ Workshop co-facilitated by award-winning writers Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Chika Unigwe in 2024. He also participated in the 2025 Kokonut Head Media Virtual Residency Programme. Hussani’s work has appeared in Boston Review, Wilted Pages, Ubwali Literary Magazine, Tasteful: A Literary Cannibal Anthology, Brave New Weird Anthology (Tenebrous Press), Brittle Paper, Evergreen Review, Solarpunk, Ibua Journal, The Flametree Project, and Afritondo Prize anthologies. He lives in Kano, Nigeria, and is working on both a novel and a short story collection.

Released 1st March 2026.

‘Gold-Plated Boy’ is Available Here:

Direct from ZamaShort at our shop here in our Bundles or by Subscription.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPDRSQG2
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Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/gold-plated-boy/id6759450359
Libby: https://share.libbyapp.com/title/12918702
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/gold-plated-boy
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Google Play Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=r1zCEQAAQBAJ
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1972415
Fable: https://fable.co/book/x-9789189984042
Thalia: https://www.thalia.de/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1078314258
Vivlio: https://shop.vivlio.com/product/9789189984042_9789189984042_10020/gold-plated-boy

The ZamaShort imprint series is solely focused on the amazing powerhouse that is the short story. We give each short story its own publication so that it may be read and enjoyed fully as a stand-alone publication. As per the StoryTime Publishing mandate initialised in 2007, ZamaShort continues to champion and add to the ever-growing canon of African literature excellence and diversity.