Black Friday: Short Stories from Africa

A stunning collection in a stunning book, Cheryl S. Ntumy's fantasy and near-future sci-fi is powerful and unique.

Cheryl S. Ntumy's fantasy and near-future sci-fi is powerful and unique. Black Friday: Short Stories from Africa is a collection of short stories exploring diverse themes ranging from rampant consumerism, corruption and oppression to community-building, faith, reclamation and healing, all with a speculative bent.

Explore solarpunk set in Ghana, cyberpunk set in South Africa and dystopian fiction set in Botswana. Robots and aliens. Butterflies and elephants. Wedding dresses that make brides happy and electrified dresses that hold queens hostage. Consumer culture and permaculture.

These are dark, sometimes bleak stories of war, grief and disillusionment, but also optimistic, wholesome tales of love, regeneration and hope. With mysteries, magical realism and cautionary tales, the collection has something for everyone.

The Flame Tree Beyond and Within short story collections bring together tales of myth and imagination by modern and contemporary writers, carefully selected by anthologists, and sometimes featuring short stories from a single author. Overall, the series presents a wide range of diverse and inclusive voices with myth, folkloric-inflected short fiction, and an emphasis on the supernatural, science fiction, the mysterious and the speculative. The books themselves are gorgeous, with foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover editions, offering a lifetime of reading pleasure.