Important female authors are included like Egypt's

bestseller writer, Ahdaf Soueif (her Map of Love was on the Booker shortlist in 1999). Ama Ata Aidoo, Ghana's leading feminist writer gives us Lice, and Nawal El Saadawi, one of the few pioneering Arabic women writers who has been published in the West, unveils The Veil.
Kenya's esteemed Ngugi wa Thiong'o (in the eloquent Minutes of Glory) and Uganda's Peter Nazareth (Moneyman) portray the modern cultural landscape.

Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide remembers his childhood in God and His Medicine-men. Ben Okri - Booker prizewinner for The Famished Road - pays tribute to famine victims in A Prayer from the Living, which was published in the Guardian in order to generate funds for relief charities. Zimbabwe's Musaemura Zimunya writes a short ode to the Sunshine City in A Pineapple Incident, and Yvonne Vera describes Independence Day.
South African contributions include Peter Clarke's The Changing of the Season, Ivan Vladislavic's The Whites Only Bench and Sheila Roberts' Sweetness.
The Egyptian-born, former Nobel Prizewinner for Literature, Naguib Mahfouz, starts the anthology with his story, Half a Day.
If you're a short story fan or want to explore African literature further, this is definitely one to get your head into. RdeF