Africa Risen
A New Era of Speculative Fiction
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2023 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology
Winner of the 2023 Locus Award for Best Anthology
A 2023 NAACP Image Award Nominee
A 2023 British Fantasy Award Nominee
A NPR Best of the Year pick
A Book Riot Best SFF of the Year pick
"[A] magnificent and wide-ranging anthology . . . A must-read for all genre fans."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
From award-winning editorial team Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight comes an anthology of thirty-two original stories showcasing the breadth of fantasy and science fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora.
A group of cabinet ministers query a supercomputer containing the minds of the country’s ancestors. A child robot on a dying planet uncovers signs of fragile new life. A descendent of a rain goddess inherits her grandmother’s ability to change her appearance—and perhaps the world.
Created in the legacy of the seminal, award-winning anthology series Dark Matter, Africa Risen celebrates the vibrancy, diversity, and reach of African and Afro-Diasporic SFF and reaffirms that Africa is not rising—it’s already here.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thomas, Ekpeki, and Knight assemble a stellar lineup of 32 writers from across the African diaspora for this magnificent and wide-ranging anthology of speculative shorts. Some stories center on technology, including "IRL" by Steven Barnes, in which the protagonist must contend with the ever-thinning line between virtuality and reality. Others focus on history and politics: Sandra Jackson-Opoku's "Simbi" puzzles through the legacies of slavery and exploitation of labor, while in Wole Talabi's "A Dream of Electric Mothers," a woman consults a supercomputer containing the memories of her countryfolk to determine whether to go to war. Akua Lezli Hope's "The Papermakers," meanwhile, takes the anthology in a breezy and slightly surreal direction with the story of an interracial relationship in a papermaking guild. If none of the stories stand out, it's because each is as masterful as the next. This weighty sampler is best read slowly to give each writer their due before moving on to the next. It's an impressive survey of contemporary Black SFF that should be a must-read for all genre fans.
