Iska Press – förlag

In the distant future, while studying the land of Barzakh in the Sahara, members of the Institute for the Archeology of Human Thought unearth the bones of Gara, a young man, whose Myelin will unravel the secrets of his ancient consciousness. A foreigner in his own land, Gara, in search of a better humanity, has traveled through three eras, from the 11th-century deserts of Mauritania to the dystopic future, inadvertently sowing the seeds of his own destruction. An innovative masterpiece that symphonizes mysticism, religion, and Mauritanian culture into a dystopian reflection on the human condition, this unique blend of science fiction and philosophy will interest those looking for new voices and perspectives in science fiction.

In this collection of eighteen humorous absurdist stories, Melo weaves together postmodernism, postcolonial realities and Angolan history, through an intrusive narrator and author.  Angola is Wherever I plant My field will make the readers laugh as they reflect on life and society through stories set in Luanda, Haifa, America, and North-Korea. 

Nice—real name, Theresa—has just arrived Nairobi airport where she will be picked up by her old friend, Duncan, an American pastor for a small evangelical denomination. Duncan cannot know that Nice is fleeing her life choices, and her UN job in Mogadishu. She believes she is too innocent-looking, too nice, for anyone to suspect that she is mulling drugs.

But Nice has not contended with her drug-dealer Somali boyfriend having an associate in the Kenya Police Service. Duncan’s car crashes on the way back from the airport. Duncan awakes after the car crash, to find himself captive to the sociopathic policeman, Hinga, and the charmingly amoral Ciru. Nice is gone. Plucked from his expat bubble, Duncan must plunge into the moral complexities of the under-city to get Nice back. But how deep can Duncan go, without destroying his faith, and himself?

From short stories about the dark and the light, and how we loved then and now, to poems en route the world gathering notes of those in search of beginnings and those at their ends, and essays exploring the lost and the found, grief, being— the works in this anthology are unexpected and defiant of conventions. In myriad genres and styles and with the mere power and beauty of their words, the writers in this collection hold a prism to humanity, opening minds to new ways of seeing, of knowing.

Vamba Sherif’s The Emperor’s Son tells the story of Zaiwulo, a young boy sent off to the ancient city of Musadu to study under Talata, a great scholar and head of the legendary Haidarah family. The boy soon notices that there is more to the story of his presence among the Haidarahs, and as he grows older and becomes a soldier fighting alongside Emperor Samori whom the French nicknamed “the Black Napoleon”, his resolve to unravel the mysteries of his childhood propels him into an adventure that leads him back home in the forests where there awaits a revelation with far-reaching consequences.