Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa by Helen Moffett

Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa Reviews

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  Hannah (jellicoereads)

  I’ve recently made a resolution to read much more local and continental fiction, because there is just so much incredible content out there. For some reason a lot of us have internalised the warped idea that international is somehow better, and that what is produced locally cannot measure up – which is simply untrue. There’s also perhaps the stereotype that African literature is all about war and poverty and race, interspersed with a few appearances by lions, but again – a patently false assumption. Not that those issues aren’t important, of course, but there’s so much more to be had.
  
  A wonderful friend of mine has been involved in the production of the Short Story Day Africa anthology for the past few years, and I have just finished reading the 2017 instalment. This collection really runs the gamut of styles, genres and emotions, all interconnected by the central theme of migration. I have to admit that my particular favourites usually veer towards those in the realm of speculative fiction, and this anthology was no exception. I very much enjoyed the two stories focusing on very different versions of human journeys into some kind of afterlife: one making imaginative use of cloud technology, and the other relying on our own biological plasma as the conduit.
  
  The very first story in the collection features a boy, a crow, and an ending that will break your heart. As a reader, we are then taken on a number of different journeys throughout the anthology, whether literal or figurative. There are stories involving those who leave for another land or another dimension, and those who return in both physical and spiritual forms. There are journeys of self-discovery and self-reckoning. Journeys into love and back out of it. Contemporary narratives alluding to today’s migratory horrors, and historical perspectives on troubling legacies. Sometimes our protagonists find that the new land of milk and honey is not always what they expect. For others, home is where, and with whom, you make it.
  
  This well-written, diverse collection was a real treat – brimming with emotion, thought-provoking and wonderfully imaginative.
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  Jana Meyer

  Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa contains short stories from various writers, themes and genres all circling one way or the other around the subject matter of migrations. It is a colourful collection of short stories, unique and rich in their exploration of physical or emotional discoveries, spanning from the past to the future and back to the present, providing a glimpse into the life of a variety of characters, each of them as original as individuals can be. Migrations is about the endless facets of home, hope and love, depicted in well-written stories that contain so much more than just that, drawing on universal experiences, thoughts and feelings. So every story becomes a journey that will leave its traces.
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  Sana Burton

  I like short stories; they feel a bit like books without the time commitment, and I'm challenging myself to read more books from non-anglo cultures, so finding this book in the library worked out quite well for me. This collection had a lot more variety than most anthologies I've read, probably because it was the result of a writing competition, rather than written around a ~theme~. My favourites were "Diaspora Electronica", "The Castle", and "The Impossibility of Home".
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  Peter Eze

  Great short stories from Africa, flowing from her fountain of lush story telling, snaking through, shading lights of hopeful singsong, sparkling fresh and daring, tasteful and powerful. You know what? Art is beauty. Beauty is life. Life is a story, a book, a book of stories. Lovely anthology, this is.