September is the month dedicated to celebrating the art of short story fiction. This integral genre of literature offers both a wide range of benefits to both writers and readers. Short stories serve as an excellent avenue for writers to explore ideas while honing their skills in essential literary elements such as pacing, character development, and plot construction. For readers, short stories allow you to experience a wide range of writing styles and to discover new authors and voices.
At Farafinabooks, we have a profound appreciation for the beauty of short stories. Many of our esteemed authors began their literary journeys with remarkable short story collections. So to make your September truly special, we’ve carefully selected 8 outstanding books by our talented authors for your reading pleasure.
Expert In All Styles explores, in richly-textured stories, the complex and often painful struggles of individuals with desire, despair, and hope within the social constructs of contemporary Nigeria.
The twelve stories in the collection range in setting and tone – from the joys of a family excursion in Maiduguri in The Lake Chad Club to an American-Nigerian family’s return to Lagos in Communicable Disease.
Spanning two hundred years and multiple genres, A Possible Future uses gorgeous excerpts from over eighty literary works to showcase the inventiveness in Nigerian letters and the various zeitgeists—colonialism, despotism, Afropolitanism, postcolonialism, race and sexuality—that have defined it throughout the country’s history. The writers whose works are represented here—A. Igoni Barrett, Taiye Selasi, Gbenga Adesina, Helen Oyeyemi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Niyi Osundare, and many more—remind the world of our fraught yet rich literary backstory and point towards the immense possibilities awaiting us in its future.
In these wide-ranging stories, Barrett roams the streets with people from all stations of life. A minor policeman, full of the authority and corruption of his uniform, beats his wife. A family’s fortunes fall from love and wealth to infidelity and poverty as poor choices unfurl over three generations. With humour and tenderness, Barrett introduces us to an utterly modern Nigeria, where desire is a means to an end, and love is a power as real as money.
A dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home.
In “Who Will Greet You at Home,” a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,” a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In “The Future Looks Good,” three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in “Light,” a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to “fix the equation of a person” – with rippling, unforeseen repercussions.
Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.
Set in Nigeria and America, Voice of America moves from boys and girls in villages and refugee camps to the disillusionment and confusion of young married couples living in America, and back to bustling Lagos. It is the story of two countries and the frayed bonds between them.
In ‘Waiting’, two young refugees make their way through another day, fighting for meals and hoping for a miracle that will carry them out of the camp; in ‘A Simple Case’, the boyfriend of a prostitute gets rounded up by the local police and must charm his fellow prisoners for protection and survival; and in ‘Miracle Baby’, the trials of pregnancy and mothers-in-law are laid bare in a woman’s return to her homeland.
Written with exhilarating energy and warmth, the stories in Voice of America are full of humour, pathos and wisdom, marking the debut of an immensely talented new voice.
In this collection, 19 stories speak of the myriad struggles faced by contemporary Africans. ‘Aderoye’ tells the tragic story of a life lost to tradition. A cult collects its due in ‘Pink Soap’. ‘The Little Things’ captures life in a typical Nigerian general hospital. A budding paedophile struggles with his basic urges in ‘Fighting Temptations’. In ‘A Handful of Dust’ a gay teenager struggles to find acceptance from his family.
From the participants of the 2013 Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop, A Handful of Dust aptly portrays the internal conflicts we suffer when the lines dividing opposing sides blur.
A selection of participants from the 2012 Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop come together in this delightful collection of 13 stories that tell of humans and human relationships. ‘Be Happy’ chronicles a woman’s journey to contentment in a marriage she has settled for. An adolescent is faced with a shocking reality while attending a Catholic boys’ school in ‘A Taste of It’. In ‘An Autodidact’s Guide to Sex-Ed’ a woman contemplates the right time to introduce her children to sex. Domestic violence is explored in ‘You Take Me for a Goat’. ‘Ladies Night’ tells of the escapades of a middle-aged married man in the city of Accra.
This collection of short stories dazzles with its simplicity and resonance. It Wasn’t Exactly Love is a profound journey into the ties that bind us.
A desperate doctor commits murder to appease his wife. A drug-dealing family comes undone following a police raid. A young foreign-educated graduate, brimming with patriotic zest, returns to Nigeria to help rebuild her country, but quickly becomes disillusioned as the hassle and unpredictability of Lagos overwhelm her. And in jaunty, pointed observations, “Two-Way Streets” collects and reflects on the motifs of typical Lagos living.
The stories in this anthology take on the beautiful, clustered Lagos with aplomb and all-knowing authority, the characters’ lives coming together to weave a rich tapestry of a city that is at once startling in its grime and entertaining in its glory.
Conclusion:
This September, let’s immerse ourselves in the world of short stories whether it’s by penning your own narratives or devouring captivating short story collections.
About the Writer: Precious Obiabunmo is a graduate of English and Literature at Nnamdi Azikiwe University. She’s the Digital Content/Community Manager at Kachifo Limited. Connect with her on LinkedIn
