Short Story Day Africa brings together writers, readers, booksellers, publishers, teachers, and schoolchildren to write, submit, read, workshop, and discuss stories which explore true and alternative African culture. Their fourth annual competition and anthology is on the theme of migration. Featuring an ever-widening range of writers from across the continent these are fresh, urgent perspectives on one of our most profound phenomena. It includes shortlisted stories by Sibongile Fisher (South Africa), Mirette Bahgat Eskaros (Egypt), Blaize Kaye (South Africa), Megan Ross (South Africa), Stacy Hardy (South Africa), TJ Benson (Nigeria), and fifteen other up-and-coming writers.

Death is a fact of life, but the experience of grief is unique to each of us. This poignant and thought-provoking anthology gives us portraits of grief as seen through the eyes of writers and poets.

The contributions range from the deeply personal: a poet chronicles her relationship with her troubled, abusive father, a World War II survivor – to the political: an investigator from the Missing Persons Task Team draws us into the ongoing search for the remains of activists who were murdered by the apartheid state between 1960 and 1994 – to the philosophical: a writer ponders the ethics of killing small animals.

Perhaps grief never truly ends but these stories transform the pain of death into something beautiful so that we can find ways to live with loss.

Featuring contributions by Sisonke Msimang, Mary Watson, Karin Schimke, Hedley Twiddle, Ishtiyaq Shukri, Dawn Garisch, Shubnum Khan, Malika Ndlovu, Toni Stuart, Stacy Hardy and more.