The success of the Caine Prize for African Writing and the growth of online publishing have played key roles in putting the short story in its rightful place within the study and criticism of African literature.African writers have, much more than the critics, recognized the beauty and potency of the short story. Always the least studied in African literature classrooms and the most critically overlooked genre in African literature today, the African short story is now given the attention it deserves. Contributors here take a close look at the African short story to re-define its own peculiar pedigree, chart its trajectory, critique its present state and examineits creative possibilities. They examine how the short story and the novel complement each other, or exist in contradistinction, within the context of culture and politics, history and public memory, legends, myths and folklore. Ernest Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA; the editorial board is composed of scholars from US, UK and African universities Nigeria: HEBN

Editorial Article - Ernest N. Emenyonu'Real Africa'/'Which Africa?': the Critique of Mimetic Realism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Short Fiction - Eve EisenbergWriting Apartheid: Miriam Tlali's Soweto Stories - Mary Jane AndroneArticulations of Home & Muslim Identity in the Short Stories of Leila Aboulela - Lindsey ZanchettinUgandan Women in Contest with Reality: Mary K. Okurutu's A Woman's Voice & the Women's Future - Iniobong I. UkoSnapshots of the Botswana Nation: Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures & other Botswana Village Tales as a National Project - Louisa Uchum EgbunikeWidowhood: Institutionalized Dead Weight to Personal Identity & Dignity: A Reading of Ifeoma Okoye's The Trial & Other Stories - Regina OkaforFeminist Censure of Marriage in Islamic Societies: A Thematic Analysis of Alifa Rifaat's Short Stories - Juliana DanielsDiaspora Identities in Short Fiction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie & Sefi Atta - Rose A. SackeyfioExposition of Apartheid South African Violence & Injustice in Alex la Guma's Short Stories - Blessing Diala-OgambaLocating a Genre: Is Zimbabwe a Short Story Country? - Tinashe MushakavanhuMohammed Dib's Short Stories on the Memory of Algeria - Imene MoulatiAma Ata Aidoo's Short Stories: Empowering the African Girl Child - Hellen Roselyne L. ShigaliInterview with Ama Ata Aidoo - Maureen N. Eke and Vincent O. OdamttenReviews - James Gibbs