Unajua? – José Luandino Vieira was a political prisoner when he published his African short story Luuanda.

Many short stories in the African Writers Series brought up the troubles Africans faced during and after colonialism, which some governments did not like.

Not all short stories in the series are serious but most explore important subjects like poverty, oppression, colonialism and women’s rights.

The African Writers Series (AWS) is a collection of over 300 books published by Heinemann from 1962 to 2003 that was important in the development of modern African literature.

Read more about the AWS here

The AWS helped people in Africa and the world read books by African writers like Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Buchi Emecheta, Wole Soyinka and Steve Biko.

This article is about 11 African short story books in the African Writers Series.

There are no spoilers! This article gives you information about the short story books, their authors and some background information that will get you to want to read all the books in this list ASAP, no Rocky.

Click to Read: African Independence Movements series

11 Best African Short Story Books In The African Writers Series

* The years of publication of the books in this article their dates of publication in the African Writers Series.

(you can check out the series all about West African art over > here <<<)

#1 African short story book

African Short Stories

Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes

African Short Stories (1984) is a collection of 20 African short stories from around the continent, from West, East, North and Southern Africa.

Some African short stories included in the book are: Bossy by Abdulrazak Gurnah; The green leaves by Grace Ogot and Minutes of glory by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.

African Short Stories was put together by Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes. Lyn Innes is a British academic and writer.

She taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she was the associate editor of the journal OKIKE, founded by Chinua Achebe, with whom she co-edited another book of African short stories.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

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#2 African short story book

Girls at War and other stories

Chinua Achebe

Girls at War (1972) is a collection of short stories about the reality of war in post colonial Nigeria.

Among them are three short stories set during the Biafran war, which was a civil war in Nigeria from 1967 to 1970.

Girls at War is the 100th book in the African Writers Series. Chinua Achebe was the Editorial Advisor of the AWS for 10 years and left soon after its publication.

Chinua Achebe is known as a Father of African Literature. Girls at War was one of his many books in the AWS which include Things Fall Apart (1962) – the first book published in the African Writers Series.

Cover image from Amazon.com. Copyright belongs to the publisher or author.

You can see real life African royalty outfits by clicking on this text!

#3 African short story book

Tribal Scars and other stories

Ousmane Sembène

Tribal Scars (1974) contains many short stories, one of them called Tribal Scars that is about the origin of tribal scars.

The collection of short stories were first published in French as Voltaïque (1962) in the Pan-African journal Présence africaine. 

Ousmane Sembène was a film director, producer and writer from Senegal. He is known as the Father of African Film.

He made The Promised Land,  which is one of the short stories in Tribal Scars, into the 1966 film Black Girl, it was one of the first African films seen around the world and it is now seen as a classic of world cinema.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

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10 African Nationalists And Their Contributions

#4 African short story book

The Girl Who Can and other stories

Ama Ata Aidoo

The Girl Who Can (2002) is made up of short stories about the challenges of girls and women in school, relationships and life as a whole.

Some short stories in the book are: Her Hair Politics – a very short story; Lice and She-Who-Would-Be-King (with apology to Rudyard Kipling).

Ama Ata Aidoo was a Ghanian writer, academic and politician. She was Secretary for Education of Ghana under Jerry Rawlings’ administration.

She wrote the play, The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965) which made her the first published African woman dramatist.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

Do you know about Benin Bronzes? – find out here friend!

#5 African short story book

The Wedding of Zein and other stories

Tayeb Salih

The Wedding of Zein (1969) is a collection of short stories about Sudanese life. It brings up religion, money and the differences between modernity and tradition.

The Wedding of Zein is set in the same village as another novel by Tayeb Salih’s, Season of Migration to the North (1969) – it is a book about colonialism in Africa.

find more books about colonialism in Africa here.

Tayeb Salih was a writer and journalist from Sudan. He was an important and influential “genius of the modern Arabic novel”.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

#6 African short story book

Lokotown and other stories

Cyprian Ekwensi

Lokotown (1954) is a made up of nine short stories about the new lives of different types of people in the city.

Lokotown is one of the first West African English-language novels read by people around the world.

Cyprian Ekwensi was a Nigerian writer of novels, short stories and children’s books.

He is well known for his AWS book Jagua Nana, he also wrote Burning Grass (1962) which was the second book published in the African Writers Series.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

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#7 African short story book

We Killed Mangy-Dog & other Mozambique stories

Luis Bernardo Honwana

We Killed Mangy Dog (1964) is made up of seven short stories about life in Mozambique during colonialism and Salazar’s regime.

The short stories have characters from different races, ethnicities and religions. The book explores racial segregation and class often from a child’s point of view.

We Killed Mangy Dog is an important piece of Mozambican literature that inspired the following generations of writers in Mozambique.

Luís Bernardo Honwana was a writer and politican. At 22 years old he self-published Nós Matámos o Cão-Tinhoso (We Killed Mangy Dog) as a political prisoner of PIDE.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

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11 Types of West African Artifacts And Their Meaning

#8 African short story book

The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and other stories

Hama Tuma

The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor (1993) is a collection of short stories about Ethiopian life and the Derg regime.

The short stories tell horror stories of the regime satirically. Many stories are set in a courtroom but also in bars and village huts.

Hama Tuma is a writer from Ethiopia. He studied law and was an activist for democracy and justice. His works have been banned by three different Ethiopian governments.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

#9 African short story book

South African Short Stories

Denis Hirson and Martin Trump

South African Short Stories (1994) is a collection of short stories written between 1945 and 1992 by South Africans.

South African Short Stories was published in 1994 the year the African nationalist Nelson Mandela was elected as the first black president of South Africa.

Denis Hirson is a writer and academic from South Africa. He put the South African short stories together with Martin Trump.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

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#10 African short story book

Egyptian short stories

Denys Johnson-Davies

Egyptian short stories (1978) is made up of 17 stories by Egyptian writers like the 1988 Nobel Laureate in Literature Naguib Mahfouz, Sonallah Ibrahim and Yusuf Idris.

Denys Johnson-Davies was a great Arabic-to-English literary translator that put the Egyptian short stories together.

He translated works by notable writers like Naguib Mahfouz and Tayeb Salih. He was born in Canada and grew up in Sudan, Egypt, Uganda and Kenya until the age of 12.

Image source: Goodreads, used under Fair Use

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#11 African short story book

Luuanda short stories of Angola

José Luandino Vieira

Luuanda (1980) is made up of three short stories set in slums in Luanda, the capital of Angola, during the 1940s and 1950s.

Luuanda is a historically important book, it was banned by the Portuguese government for exposing the brutality of colonialism in Angola.

José Luandino Vieira was a writer from Angola of Portuguese descent. He published Luuanda while a political prisonner.

He wrote much of his fiction while at a concentration camp in Tarrafal, Cabo Verde which he got published by secretly sending his writings out of the camp after the 1974 Portuguese military coup.

“Luuanda gained a place in both Portuguese and Angolan history as a key moment of ‘enfrentamento’ [confrontation]. Its commemoration involves, for us, José Luandino Vieira sharing the history of Luanda.”

• Margarida Calafate Ribeiro, from an interview with Luandino

Cover image from Amazon.com. Copyright belongs to the publisher or author.

Continue reading, friend 

THINK ABOUT IT! Why don’t you write a short story and share it?

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.

~ African Proverb ~

Word Bank📚🧑🏿‍🏫

Concentration camp

Dramatist

Editorial Advisor

Ethnicity

Generation

Oppression

Literature

PIDE

The International and State Defense Police of Portugal during Prime Minister Salazar’s Estado Novo regime.

Political prisoner

Publication

Regime

Satire (satirical)

Segregation

Read (or Watch) More 🙂

Movies

Black Girl (1966) by Ousmane Sembène

References

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. – Romans 11:36

This post was all about African short story.