The Newlywed's Window - Compiled by Mukana Press

Editor: Mukana Press

Genre: African Cultural fiction, Short Story Anthology

Rating: 3.75 stars.

A very interesting collection of stories by upcoming contemporary African writers. These twelve stories have been selected from 512 entries across 23 countries. Half are by debut authors and a couple have been published only online. Thus what you get is a novel and #OwnVoices glimpse into a culture that rarely gets a voice on the international writing stage.

While many short story anthologies are built around a theme, the only thing common to the stories of this collection is the continent of origin of its writers. The writers come from multiple countries across Africa, and the stories come from genres as varied as horror, contemporary drama, fantasy, and crime thriller. This variety might work negatively for those who prefer a strong theme connecting stories in a single volume or for those who don’t prefer darker genres, but I relished the rich medley.

The events in each story range from the boring to the bizarre. The endings aren’t in your traditional HEA style, nor are they complete. Many stories are in the slice-of-life style, thereby making their endings seem like the end of a scene. But to my surprise, the endings work very well for most of the tales. They left me wanting more, in a very good way, by stopping at the right point of curiosity.

What I loved most about this collection was that the stories were infused with the flavour of the land, just as true cultural fiction should be. I hate it when stories are supposed to be set in a location but they could be transposed to any place on the globe without changing anything in its writing. That doesn’t happen here. Every single story is like an ode to Africa and its richness, and every single story can be set only in Africa.

Of the twelve stories, six reached or crossed the 4 star mark for me. Most of the remaining stories were clustered around the 3-3.5 stars point. My favourite tales were:

• "Gasping for Air" – An unusual lead, an unexpected end - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫
• "Black Pawpaw" – Outstanding writing style. Creepy and captivating at the same time - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫
• "Our Girl Bimpe" – The horrors of online presence experienced through a young girl’s Facebook account. Quite shocking - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

“Mukana” means “opportunity” in Shona, a language spoken in South Africa. I found this name very serendipitous as Mukana Press seems to have provided a fabulous opportunity to these young writers. I will keep an eye out for their subsequent publications.

3.75 stars, based on the average of my rating for the twelve stories.

My thanks to Mukana Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Newlyweds’ Window”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.