The Gathering
Fiction and poetry
Short stories, poems and the occasional play, published by the magazines themselves rather than excerpted.
Kalahari Review
Pan-African
High-volume short fiction, poetry and nonfiction by African writers, lightly edited. Plenty to read, less filtering done for you.
kalaharireview.com →-
7 Sep
In The Midst Of The Silence Of The World
Essay on the dilemma of writing while the world burns — by Isaac Dominion AjuI can’t explain why people are wired the way they are wired. I’m a person…
The Kalahari Review
6 min -
2 Sep
Five Minutes Late
How long can you keep love waiting before it stops waiting for you? — a short story by BodgesI have always been late to important things.Not meetings or flights…
The Kalahari Review
19 min -
2 Sep
Concrete Humus
Poems exploring ecological grief in the hands of humanity, forced assimilation, and lost sanctuaries — by Leasebeth Ritz KisembaConcrete HumusDew fell in the dumps of the soil of the…
The Kalahari Review
3 min -
31 Aug
The Weight of Dust
A story exploring ambition, duty, community leadership, sacrifice, and the pursuit of justice — by Yiro Abari HighThe rocks of Barkin Ladi remember a different time. They stand like…
The Kalahari Review
12 min -
31 Aug
Nigeria: Theocracy, Homophobia, And Injustice
An investigative essay on the fatal human cost of legalised homophobia in Nigeria — from Mistus ElordieWhile global acceptance of LGBTQ+ rights has grown over the years, Nigeria remains…
The Kalahari Review
13 min -
26 Aug
The Fourth Junction
A cleansing ritual ends. Something follows the family home anyway — by Ful Anthony AkoniThe soil from the last junction wouldn’t sit still.Tonsi noticed it when he tipped the third…
The Kalahari Review
5 min -
25 Aug
The Woman Who Sells Dawn
Four poems exploring resilience, memory, belonging, and the quiet revolutions of everyday African lives — from Ismail Adekunle HassanThe Woman Who Sells DawnShe does not own the sun,yet every morningshe…
The Kalahari Review
2 min -
25 Aug
Greed
Poems about life and the curious ways of men (and women) — by Oluwadamilola RasakGreedEveryday more men sit by the railroadOf reality than the previous day.We’re cursed by…
The Kalahari Review
2 min
Isele Magazine
Africa and diaspora
Fiction, poetry, essays, interviews and visual art, mostly African and diaspora writers. Strong on contemporary literary short work.
iselemagazine.com →-
30 Aug
Newcomer | ‘Pemi Aguda
They might be a small congregation, just over forty, but the Lord is good to them. Didn’t Brother Timothy’s goitre, grotesque and distracting, shrivel into itself…
Contributor
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30 Aug
His Only Current Wife | R. Makama
Kano, 2015 On a chilly Friday evening, the earth still damp from the season’s first rains, my husband told me he was taking another wife. Everything…
Contributor
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30 Aug
I Mistook My Name for Constellation | Salwa Emerson
A red leather photo album sat on a bookshelf in our living room throughout my childhood. Inside it, under textured vellum sheets, a collection of square…
Contributor
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30 Aug
For Now, That’s Enough | Garima Chhikara
That night, I stood in the dark, tangled in my clothes, fingers trembling against buttons I couldn’t undo. I gave up and fell onto the bed…
Contributor
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30 Aug
Remarkable | Riah Hopkins
It’s Christmas and I am home, taking an all-too quick break from my graduate studies at a boring university in the Midwest. I like my hair…
Contributor
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30 Aug
Daylight | David Emeka
I gave myself exactly one minute before ringing the bell again, examining the flowers outside his fence, which were prim and green and lively. Then I…
Contributor
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30 Aug
The Devil Is… | Jaylan Devin Thompson
Last Sunday, the Devil came over for dinner after his sermon. Momma prepared the whole refrigerator: jerk chicken, rice and peas, steamed cabbage, salmon…She even bought…
Contributor
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30 Aug
Seeing Red | Uchanma Kama
IFUNAYA I dusted my apron, took it off and folded it into my small tote bag. My hours at the restaurant were over and I couldn’t…
Contributor
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Nantygreens
Nigeria
Poetry, fiction, book reviews, interviews and art coverage out of Nigeria. Irregular, with real gaps between runs.
nantygreens.com →-
28 Aug
3 Poems by Ewurama Tawiah Welbeck
The Weight of Dark Shades in White Hues i see the devouring spirits circle my joy. i watch them brood over my calm. daily, they sit…
Ewurama Tawiah Welbeck
2 min -
21 Aug
Tell Me
About how they invaded the villages. How the soldiers arrived in canoes. How the villagers heard them arriving and put together parcels of food and grain…
Mia Maisha
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22 May
Book Review: Everything is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe
Iryn Tushabe’s debut novel lands solidly, leaving a distinct mark on the African fiction landscape. The Ugandan-Canadian writer captures life in Bigodi village and Kampala town,…
Joy Mamudu
3 min -
8 May
I am a library of water
I am a library of water; a little girl cupping her palms, harvesting the rain for the baptisms they imitate as they pronounce each other saints:…
Salama Wainaina
2 min -
25 Apr
6628 | Temiloluwa Okanmiyo
I’ve never been to the beach But i can swear It smells just like my sister— 6628 miles away from me You can call this scent…
Temiloluwa Okanmiyo
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21 Feb
Book Review: Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow by Damilare Kuku
“I plan to renovate my bumbum in Lagos, live there for some time, and hopefully meet the love of my life!” The book immediately plunges us…
Joy Mamudu
3 min -
21 Oct 2025
2 Poems by Dennis Williams
It wasn’t long ago It wasn’t so long ago,that elders were respected.It wasn’t long ago when wrongs were regretted.People were human and they wore their hearts…
Dennis Williams
1 min -
20 Sep 2025
2 Poems – Chris Gonoh
The Second Creator Every man nurses his fear, A hymn whispered in shadowed cathedrals of the heart. Freedom drips like molten gold, never quite enough,…
Chris Gonoh
4 min
Omenana
Pan-African
African speculative fiction, three issues a year: science fiction, fantasy, horror and magical realism.
omenana.com →-
25 Aug
Omenana Speculative Fiction Magazine Issue 35 August 2026
Omenana Speculative fiction magazine is a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. Issue 35…
Admin
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25 Aug
Senator Ibile | Uduak-Abasi Ekong
Omenana Speculative fiction magazine is a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. The short,…
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25 Aug
Beneath the flower’s gaze | Kevin Rigathi
Omenana Speculative fiction magazine is a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. The moon,…
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25 Aug
What the Water Remembers: African Speculative Fiction and the Return of the Imagination
Omenana Speculative fiction magazine is a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. Afrofuturism, as…
admin2 admin 2
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25 Aug
Seeds of the Storm | Bongiwe Maphosa
Omenana Speculative fiction magazine is a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. The forest…
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25 Aug
Mortality | Chisom Umeh
Omenana Speculative fiction magazine is a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. After John…
admin2 admin 2
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23 Dec 2025
Omenana 34: The Niger Delta Issue
Omenana Speculative fiction magazine is a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. Hey there!…
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23 Dec 2025
The Last Fisher of Oporoza | Tomilola Adejumo
Omenana Speculative fiction magazine is a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora. Halfway to…
admin2 admin 2
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Tampered Press
Ghana
Fiction, poetry and nonfiction by African and African-descended writers, published every Tuesday. Rare among these for keeping a schedule.
tamperedpress.com →-
18 Aug
HOW MANY TIMES PERSON GO DEY BEG GOD?
Fiction by Denoo Edinam Yawo My date was rubbing his penis in slow strokes. We were seated at the back of… ‘restaurant’ isn’t quite fitting for…
tampered_press
11 min -
11 Aug
LAGOS NOIR: A STUDY IN ENTROPY
Non-Fiction by drc. Jaèy I. The Initial State (low entropy) [Date: Tuesday. The power is out again.] The needle doesn’t just drop; it drags. It scrapes…
tampered_press
8 min -
4 Aug
CANTATA: MIGRATION SEQUENCE 1
& other poems by Afia Ansong I turn every visit to the country into a song I sing of my grandmother’s hometown I sing and climb…
tampered_press
3 min -
28 Jul
TAPE LETTERS
Fiction by Claudia Owusu She stirred awake in the middle of the night, this time not because of rainstorms or a neighbor’s quarrel; but because of…
tampered_press
26 min -
21 Jul
AMEN
Poetry by Eileen Gbagbo On a 5 minute voice note on Whatsapp My father is praying for me Blessings, holy fire on my enemies – I…
tampered_press
3 min -
14 Jul
MARCHING IN PLACE
Fiction by Jean Wathugu This skater at the park just missed my left hip by an inch. The LEDs on the Bluetooth speaker strapped to his…
tampered_press
3 min -
7 Jul
ODE TO THE WELLS OF SALAGA
Poetry by Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri 1. Smear your palms with the dust of the Savannah and press them against the trunk of the ancestral baobab. See…
tampered_press
5 min -
30 Jun
ON NOT BURNING THE HOUSE DOWN
Non-Fiction by nanama boatemaa acheampong PART I She said it the night before I left for university, as if it were a warning and not an…
tampered_press
18 min
Doek!
Namibia
Namibian fiction, poetry, nonfiction and visual art in roughly biannual issues. The gap matches its cadence rather than signalling trouble.
doeklitmag.com →-
23 Dec 2025
Good Mourning
every time the darkness gathers in my chest i turn to your lighter you lift your face to the cold dark night and exhale light from…
Jeremy Tiboth
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23 Dec 2025
Corporate Cake
The weekly team call makes my stomach hurt. There are about 30 of us in this online meeting. I feel so detached from my own body.…
Kina Indongo
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23 Dec 2025
That Sweet Faraway Place Where Dreams Are Made
Literatea is an interview series which brings together prominent and emerging voices in African writing, editing, publishing, translation, marketing, distribution, and retail to discuss the craft…
Ayesha Harruna Attah
18 min -
23 Dec 2025
Wrapped In Confinement
In my work, I transform intimate interiors into psychological landscapes where colour and form become builders of parallel universes. My figures often depict solitary women rendered…
Reem Aljeally
2 min -
23 Dec 2025
The Aristocrat
My insecurity is an elderly British aristocrat, who worries constantly about my honour being at risk. He worries over whether, if perhaps, I have waited too…
Kina Indongo
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23 Dec 2025
Florida
The first time I bleed abroad, I am thinking of sunlight. Florida weather reaches up into my uterus, with warm humid fingers. I am counting all…
Kina Indongo
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23 Dec 2025
Storm On The Horizon
Florida, our motorboat, renamed after the slain Gazan journalist Anas al Cherif, goes faster than others. We have finished a filling breakfast: unleavened bread, made by…
Zukiswa Wanner
2 min -
23 Dec 2025
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Literatea is an interview series which brings together prominent and emerging voices in African writing, editing, publishing, translation, marketing, distribution, and retail to discuss the craft…
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
27 min
Agbowó
Nigeria
Themed issues of fiction, poetry, essays, drama and visual art. Issue Ten was the outgoing editor's last, which likely explains the pause.
agbowo.org →-
31 Oct 2025
Agbowó Magazine – The Tenth Issue
Editor’s NoteI have been writing a story in which my character is struggling to remember. He is a teacher who lived through the Civil War, a…
admin
5 min -
31 Oct 2025
Ars Chiroptera | Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe
Just as how every first step had sealed us damned, he had sealed this thing between us— this living, dying thing — with that ring. The one…
admin
2 min -
30 Oct 2025
To Friendship | Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe
For my lovesI could remember them forever. Those days whence I was whole, human. & palm trees bristled with gilded teeth. I could tell you that, for a while,…
admin
2 min -
30 Oct 2025
Meditations in Garden City | Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe
Who says this city is not a religion?Come outside, walk with me. See the tall buildings steeped in night. The black-blue, starless Pitaquan sky. The colonnade of gold streetlights. And black…
admin
1 min -
30 Oct 2025
Till The Ground Lets Up Its Dust | mulika ojikutu-harnett
If not here under the moons of our gaze, then where can our children freely sing a song that swells for no reason but joy broiling, an impermanence seeking for itself …
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30 Oct 2025
To Begin Like A Prayer | mulika ojikutu-harnett
Running palm-length creased into rivulets in the hands of Olodumare the spirit of Iya ma’amiburrows around knuckle before slipping through a thin crack and she becomes a ridge of stone:Iyami, poured concrete of a …
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30 Oct 2025
On The Inner Consciousness of Time (a bastard ABECEDARIAN) | mulika ojikutu-harnett
mulika ojikutu-harnettmulika ojikutu-harnett is a Lagos-born Nigerian with UK settled status. An independent producer, transpersonal coach, trainee analytic psychotherapist and Zen yogini. A graduate of Manchester…
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30 Oct 2025
House on the Rock | Chimee Adịọha
Mother does not end prayers until she says a house built on a rock does not rot. A house built on a rock shall never be…
admin
18 min
Jalada Africa
Pan-African
A writers' collective whose themed anthologies and translation issues, including the Ngũgĩ translation project, remain a landmark. Inactive since 2023.
jaladaafrica.org →-
29 May 2025
Jalada Africa Joins the World to Mourn Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938 – 2025)
All of us at Jalada are deeply saddened to mark the passing of Professor Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938—2025). Ngũgĩ was not only a pioneering figure in…
Jalada
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21 Mar 2024
Mandela sẹ Leah
Esan Ansel Ahabue « Eye », ọle wẹ, « E i sabo zẹ obho rie umiẹnfan »Ele mu fi bhi ighan nọnsi Robben Island, ọne eyokulo…
Jalada
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1 Oct 2023
Jalada Translation Issue 02: Wọlé Ṣóyínká
Introduction Original poem in English by Prof. Wọlé Ṣóyínká Translations Available in 49 Languages » ・“Yorùbá” by Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún ・“Kiswahili” by Hassan Kassim Hassan・“Persian” by Babak Mazloumi…
Jalada
2 min -
1 Oct 2023
Credits
Project Lead, Issue 02: Wanjeri GakuruProject Conceptor & Issue 01 Lead: Moses Kilolo, Original Text in English by Prof. Wọlé ṢóyínkáCover Design and Images: Marziya Mohammedali First published in…
Jalada
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1 Oct 2023
Introduction by Wanjeri Gakuru
The second anthology in Jalada Africa’s Translation Series was launched on October 1st 2023, the same day Nigeria marked 53 years since the proclamation of independence…
Jalada
4 min -
1 Oct 2023
Mandela wə́ sɔ́’ bí Leah
Ghomala Nelson Kamkuimo E lə ghɔ̌m gaə́ “Gɛ̌ŋ, pə́ cə́ â hə́ŋ ywə́ tə́ nə̀ há lə̀pʉə̀ ɔ̀” Pə́ nə́ŋ sʉm mtǿ nə́ bú yú tâmbɛŋ…
Jalada
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1 Oct 2023
Mandela anakujia Leah
Sheng Mwangi Wa Mahugu ‘Zii,’ msee alidai,’Freedom si yaku-chongwa kwa brain ’ba ma-shengerere kwa miguu ya veteranmzito wa Robben Island.‘Zii’, ngeus alidai, ufahamu hai-achi room ya…
Jalada
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1 Oct 2023
Leah kvazaŭ Mandela
Esperanto Riccio Antonio “Ne” li diris, “La libero estas neniam kondiĉita” Kaj katenitis la veterano de Robben Island. “Ne” ŝi diris, “La kono permesas neniun ekskludon”…
Jalada
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adda
London · edited abroad
The Commonwealth Foundation's magazine of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. Not Africa-only, but African writers appear heavily.
addastories.org →-
4 Sep
Bitter Water Village
The post Bitter Water Village appeared first on adda.
Commonwealth Writers
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4 Sep
The God under the Bed
The post The God under the Bed appeared first on adda.
Commonwealth Writers
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4 Sep
Pom Pom Peedeem Pom
The post Pom Pom Peedeem Pom appeared first on adda.
Commonwealth Writers
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4 Sep
Fighting Elsewhere
The post Fighting Elsewhere appeared first on adda.
Commonwealth Writers
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17 Aug
No Spark in Mafiz’s Relationship
The post No Spark in Mafiz’s Relationship appeared first on adda.
Commonwealth Writers
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17 Aug
মফিজের রিলেশনে স্পার্ক নাই
The post মফিজের রিলেশনে স্পার্ক নাই appeared first on adda.
Commonwealth Writers
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17 Aug
Saudade
The post Saudade appeared first on adda.
Commonwealth Writers
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17 Aug
Thirty-One Steps
The post Thirty-One Steps appeared first on adda.
Commonwealth Writers
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