Alabi’s face began to take on a malevolent contour, but then he got a grip on himself. The poor boy was not responsible for his problems.

I want them/to break and contort, come alive with a/fire that cannot be quenched

The shortlist for the 2023 Afritondo Short Story Prize

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, we appreciate some of the amazing women we have worked with in the last few years. At Afritondo, we champion the works of African women and will continue to do so.

I think of her eyes, wet, as they bade me goodbye from the neighbourhood we shared for a year. A proximity that had made my night visits possible, spontaneous.

We let silence speak the words our mouth cannot; we let it tell the tales of her pleas and my forgiveness. Mayme might have been my citizenship insurance at first, but now, she is my wife, the woman I love.

Winner of the Afritondo Short Story Prize 2020.

every eye holds a picture of the / sea angrily beating its shore

I was surprising even myself with all this wisdom. I guess beauty has a way of bringing out the best things in us.

A few months back, it would have been a death sentence just to walk these roads—gun or no gun. The war seemed to be truly at its end, and I was on the right side of that end.

You had gone to pick up the ornaments and decorations for your photographs and the two beautiful matching pyjamas you had ordered for yourself and him.

The baby, has a baby / She’s no longer a child / A child she must now bear

No more love / Only the harvest of /golden-yellow sunflowers/ Another summer on hold

A thick wad yesterday because he was a potbellied politician/ Wafer-thin today because he is a construction worker/ Something is better than nothing

She was between the devil and the deep blue sea. The deep blue sea that led to Europe was better than the devil at home.

Gather woods /Make a fire /Stand strong before the smoke

Courage was foreign to me. It was something I couldn’t grab and make mine. But not that Tuesday.

Monde was left to race against the sun, for the moment it set, the night entertained the dead.

ChiUkwu is called ChiUkwu for a reason. He is the only god with “ukwu” attached to his name. The Great. The Supreme. And what does a man so weak that the rains had beaten the melanin off him know about greatness?

Solemnity—A poem by Arthur Davies | Liberia