Publications

ZamaShort #1 ‘Piss Corpse’ by Muthi Nhlema

Meet Charlotte, Peace Corps volunteer fresh off the plane from Iowa to Malawi and teaching English at a local school. Loaded with hilarious preconceptions as an American, feminist, and agnostic, she expected an adventure — just not one where trousers mean pants and white privilege feels like the punchline of a bad joke. With the help of her spirited chaperone, Malawian Mbumba, Charlotte is ushered into a culture clash more like a train smash and has never felt more alive.

ZamaShort #2 ‘Summer’ by Nerine Dorman

In the far future on the outer reaches of the great human space diaspora Hannali toils daily under alien skies on their farm. On a break into town she spots Summer, a childhood friend, on a scaffold waiting to be hanged… What ensues is a touching tale of choices made, different paths taken, bonds formed and broken, what makes us who we are, and how we travel through life.

ZamaShort #3 ‘The Last and Final Battle’ by Zainab Omaki

The world is in chaos, climate crisis, wars, extinctions, inequality, poverty, and pandemics, and one Yoruba god has just had enough. Abandoning centuries of non-interference the Great God Sango; Orisha of Orishas; God of Thunder, Fire, and Lightning; God of Justice and Leadership, returns to Earth, and he’s not alone.

ZamaShort #4 ‘The Clarity of Ice’ by Carmelo Rafalà

In a remote solar system, a routine planet human-seeding run has gone terribly wrong. Racing against the clock, before their mothership leaves the system and strands them, two bio-farmers Karlyn and Cruz must solve their dilemmas. They are not only battling with incomprehensible system errors and time, but also with unresolved personal issues and the long shadow of their inequitable upbringing. Failure is not an option.

ZamaShort #5 ‘The Smell of Rain’ by Libby Young

In the near future the Climate Crisis rages on relentlessly. On a farm, in the all but abandoned Cape Province in South Africa it has not rained for years, and yet Tilda and her dog Alfie somehow survive. Tilda’s life has shrunk down to a series of lonely routines in an echo of a life long gone. Until the day a desperate young boy breaks her isolation and everything changes.

ZamaShort #6 ‘Sindi Fair’ by Dare Segun Falowo

In the mythical African Kingdom of Uju, tragedy strikes down a renown herbalist Janu with a sleeping sickness. Janu’s husband Chief Len—a Hand of the god, Gbew—and his son Fren must undertake a journey to the god's ibudo to find a cure. But there will be a price to be paid for this cure, and Fren will be the one to pay it. What ensues is a tale of magic, hardship, achillean romance, redemption, and finding one’s true self. Direct from the incredibly inventive mind of Dare Segun Falowo, author of Caged Ocean Dub, this new story takes you into the fantastically imagined, layered, and nuanced, world of Uju.

ZamaShort #7 ‘When Two Sorcerers Collide’ by T. L. Huchu

On a sweltering Halloween night in Harare two legends of the Edinburgh Nights series will meet for the very first time. Before Ropa Moyo, before the catastrophe, there was Melsie Mhondoro and Ian Callander. Together they will face an ancient evil in a land with roots deep as magic itself. Together their actions will resound down the decades. And it all starts right here, right now, tonight.

ZamaShort #8 ‘The Offertory’ by Tabitha Wanja Mwangi

A strange offering is discovered in the church of the United Resurrection Savior’s much-revered offertory basket. Devoted parishioner and amateur sleuth Selina Kumi decides to get to the bottom of this mystery. In the process of her investigation Selina will uncover some humorous and uncomfortable truths about her fellow members, her church, and herself. But will she find the culprit?

ZamaShort #9 ‘Everyone is a Robot until Proven Otherwise’ by Bongani Sibanda

By the year 2099 robots had become an intractable part of South African society until a dire warning of a robots’ rebellion is issued by AndroidsWatch. In the resulting mad scramble, Operation Shanela, headed by General Dube, is tasked with finding and removing all robots. Until the fateful day when Dube himself somehow tests positive for being a robot. On the run, doubting his own humanity, seeing conspiracies everywhere, Dube must try and save the world and himself.

ZamaShort #10 ‘Vibrating Particles’ by Daniel Joe

When a writer is dragged out of self-imposed isolation by his boisterous friend a chance encounter with a great lost love explodes his whole world. Memories and suppressed hurts well up but also a new fragile flame is ignited. Can they settle the past, reforge a path, and re-write their future together?

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.

ZamaShort #12 ‘Did You get Married to Her when I was in the Mental Hospital?’ by Abigail George

Award-winning poet Abigail George takes you on a vivid contemporary odyssey in the poetic form of a prose poetry collection through psychological landscapes of her inner and outer world. In living with a diagnosed bipolar condition, George burns star bright and black-hole dark, but her writing has always remained, sustained, and mattered, giving us this rare eloquent and vital insight.