Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology, the inaugural Sauúti anthology, edited by Wole Talabi and published by Android press, continues to enjoy global visibility. It was announced in the Locus Recommended Reading List and a finalist in the Locus and British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards, with stories longlisted in the both awards, and listed on the HWA Bram Stoker Award® Reading List. It also has multiple stories shortlisted in the Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans.
Given this vast scope, there’s plenty of room for J. Umeh’s joyous ‘Kalabashing’, chronicling an interplanetary battle of the bands, to sit next to T.L. Huchu’s horror story ‘The Hollowed People’, in which a planet’s fragmented reality leaves its inhabitants both dead and alive at once. Eugen Bacon’s poetic neurodivergent dragonslayer tale ‘Sina, the Child with No Echo’ fits in every bit as well as Xan van Rooyen’s futuristic story of a magical Deaf DJ in ‘Lost in the Echoes’. Released with a story bible and under copyright arrangements that will soon allow any African writer to add their voice to the collective, this feels like the start of something monumental.—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
ed. Wole Talabi