by Claire Boyle
First published 2019
This hardcover quarterly brings together established voices like Michelle Tea, T. C. Boyle, and Jose Antonio Vargas with breakthrough Nigerian writers. The collection spans failed break-ins and supernatural perception shifts, postal workers losing faith and music meant for unconscious patients. Dead lovers return for final conversations while prisoners plan desperate escapes. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie introduces the Nigerian fiction section, spotlighting writers including Ope Adedeji, Roy Udeh-Ubaka, and Chukwuebuka Ibeh. Rui Tenreiro contributes an illustrated story that starts on the cover and runs ten pages. Soviet absurdist Daniil Kharms appears in translation by Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Ferris. The issue includes letters from Emerson Whitney and Kristen Iskandrian alongside fiction from Jincy Willett, Genevieve Hudson, and Dantiel W. Moniz. Each piece explores the gap between what characters expect and what actually happens to them.
Genres: fiction, short-stories, anthologies, african-literature, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, magical-realism
Setting: Africa, Nigeria
Period: 21st Century
264 pages · Hardcover · McSweeney's Quarterly Concern