No Edges: Swahili Stories (Calico Series, 7)

Swahili is the future. The first collection of contemporary Swahili fiction of its kind, No Edges introduces eight East African writers--including Clara Momanyi (tr. Enoch Matundura), Katama G. C. Mkangi (tr. Richard Prins), and Euphrase Kezilahabi (tr. Duncan Ian Tarrant)--as they share tales of insects, mass transit, begrudging wizards, carceral spaceships en route to eternity, and more. These stories present the joy-filled chaos of life on a crowded Earth (particularly cities in Tanzania and Kenya), as well as the mysteries that extend well beyond it. Here the cacophonic bliss of rush-hour matatu rides confront visions of dancers in the swirling dust. The humiliation of public indigestion sits alongside an alternate, witchy world of sorcerers and hyenas who stink "like rotting, sun-dried fish." Evincing the joyous rebellion of a Wanuri Kahiu film and Africanfuturist visions worthy of Nnedi Okorafor, these are writers authoring the boundless future into being.