Reviews

The Goddess of Mtwara and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2017 by The Caine Prize for African Writing

juniper77's review

I can't deal with metaphors and sad stories right now

gabybeckley's review

dark emotional funny fast-paced

4.5

Highlights:

• Who Will Greet You At Home
• Bush Baby
• God's Children Are Little Broken Things 
• Fidel
• The Secret Language of Vowels
• My Mother's Project
• The Storymage

Completely over my head:

• The Virus
• An Unperson Stands...etc.

buzz's review

3.0

Overall, I liked this short story anthology comprising 16 stories: 5 of them had been shortlisted for the Caine Prize of 2017 and the rest had emerged from the Caine Prize African writers' workshop.
There was a mix of really good stories from around the content like the horror story Bush Baby, the queer-themed God's Children are Little Broken Things, and the creepy Shells.
I literally couldn't get through one story, An Unperson Stands on the Cracked Pavement Contemplating Being and Nothingness.

chaostalking's review

2.5

Didn't love this particular anthology overall, but I wanted to highlight my favourite stories here: 

• "Shells" by Lesley Nneka Arimah — 5 stars: Short, concise, perfectly spooky-dooky. What a whirlwind of controlled writing. I’m imagining a lot of these workshop-originated pieces were written and workshopped quite quickly, so it’s great to see such such a strong work among them. Sharp prose, wonderful mythology, and a wonderfully paced development of the relationships between the main character and her sister and ex. The ending is a foregone conclusion but still. HITS. I can't wait to get my hands on Arimah's short story collection, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky.
• "God's Children Are Little Broken Things" by Arinze Ifeakandu — 4,5 stars: The story juggles so much and threads them together masterfully. The writing is intimate in its sparseness, and this is one of those rare examples in which the lack of quotation marks doesn’t just work for me, but actually elevates the story (it’s typically not a device I appreciate at all, much less think makes the story stronger). The main character has such dynamic relationships with everyone in the story, and the way those relationships push and pull against one another for the main character is so rewarding. And that ending? GUTTURAL.