I designed the cover art for Short Story Day Africa’s latest anthology of short fiction, Hotel Africa. It’s my second book in the series, and I was shortlisted and then won the prize a few years ago (‘Water’ and ‘Migrations’) so the entire project is very close to my heart (as are Helen Moffett and Rachel Zadok and the whole SSDA team).
This is from the book’s blurb:
“For this sixth collection of stories seeking the most innovative writing emerging from the continent, we asked for stories of Africa’s hotels: grand and shabby, real and imaginary, pulsating with life and abandoned. Here, it’s not just the walls that speak (and weep); the corridors, kitchens, lobbies, bars and beds all have stories to tell. But none more so than the array of characters jostling each other across these pages: tourists, cleaners, children, beggars, honeymooners, cooks, soldiers, those travelling hopefully.
Check in to meet captive maternal progenitors, a dragon-breathed gangster, a herd of mystical donkeys, competing chefs, a prosperity pastor, and more.
Check in to read stories of anonymous hookups, the pitfalls of nostalgia, surviving a colonial past, imagining astonishing futures.
Check in to hear a chorus of irresistible voices -- from Cameroon to Zambia, from Egypt to Malawi.
Check in to HOTEL AFRICA”
For more information and to buy the book, please go to the SSDA website.
The beautiful donkey motif on the end pages was created by Candace DiTalamo