The Gods Who Send Us Gifts: An Anthology of African Short Stories

by Ivor Agyeman-Duah (Editor), Wole Soyinka (Foreword), Valerie Amos (Foreword)

This anthology marks the 55th anniversary of the historic 1962 Makerere Conference of African Literature in Uganda bringing together post-independence African writers many of whom would go on to play major roles in defining Africa's literary history. One of them wrote; "we were amazed that fate had entrusted us with the task of interpreting a continent to the world."

Those who gathered included the Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, JP Clark, Kofi Awoonor, Frances Ademola, Cameron Doudu, Lewis Nkosi, Dennis Brutus, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Bloke Modisane, the African American writer Langton Hughes et al.

Fifty-five years on, many have joined the ancestors but there are a few survivors who will attend the launch of this Anthology at SOAS in London on 28th October 2017.

256 pages, Paperback

Published January 23, 2018

Reviews

[Wamuyu Thoithi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confession: I didn’t finish this book. I was stuck at 40% for the longest and eventually just skimmed through the end. I wanted so badly to love this book because I’m all about Africana, especially from the greatest post-colonial literary artists. But the stories were bland and the editing was terrible (typos, order etc.) The foreword was actually the most interesting part of the book in my opinion.