Celebrated Zimbabwean writer, Masimba Musodza, has released a new short story collection titled Speaking for Melos. This is the UK based writer’s second short story anthology and his 4th book overall.
Published through Carnelian Heart, Speaking for Melos features a myriad of darkly luminous stories. Fathers and sons, lovers and rivals, migrants and returnees move through a Zimbabwe suspended between memory and reinvention, and through a diaspora that promises escape yet delivers its own reckonings.
A disgraced screenwriter hears his deported son’s name whispered in a crowded bar and must decide what it means to say, “Here I am, my son.” A celebrated technologist confronts the cost of power, autonomy and revenge in a society that still doubts her womanhood. Pumpkins grown on cursed soil follow their owners across continents, carrying something ancestral and unspeakable into suburban England.
“Masimba Musodza’s characters live in a morally gray world where the debate about whether the ends justify the means rages on. Lots of little details that, upon a second or third reading, take on a deeper significance,” wrote Alex Brown
Masimba Musodza’s short fiction has appeared in anthologies and periodicals around the world, and online, such as StoryTime (Sweden), Jungle Jim (South Africa), Omenana (Nigeria), Lolwe (Kenya), Bookends (Jamaica), Mosi-oa-Tunya Literary Review (Zimbabwe) and Manchester Review (United Kingdom).
The author has two novels in Shona, the science-fiction MunaHacha Maive Nei? and the horror Shavi Rechikadzi, in addition has published a slipstream/supernatural novella titled Aquilina (Reururo yaHatifari Maforimbo in Shona) and a collection of science-fiction stories, The Junkyard Rastaman & Other Stories.
Musodza was featured in Geoff Ryman’s “100 African Writers Of Speculative Fiction” and Culture Trip’s “Best Writers From Zimbabwe.”
Speaking for Melos is available for purchase from all major online bookstores.
