The verandah steps were too steep for a safe passage. I sat with elbows propped on the armrests of my wheelchair. I was grateful that the drizzle had abated. From the foot of the raised verandah, I could hear the gentle throb of an African drum, counterpointed by the chook-chook of rattles and the sombre … Read more
Will This Be A Problem is proud to announce that issue 4 of the Will This Be A Problem Anthology will be released in April 2020. Eight new stories from writers across the African continent. There will be singular dystopian worlds, chilling horror landscapes, sprawling urban fantasy and mind bending science fiction concepts. We’ve put … Read more
Wherever you go, however much you change, some things will not. There are placeless, immortal, immoral things incapable of growing weary. You can start running away today. They will wait for you at the finish line. When I was six years old, my mother died. It had been raining the whole day. I was … Read more
Skeins of cobwebs hung from the wooden rafters of the mabati shack alongside an assortment of beads and bones on strings. The room had a solitary window that was only partially open and covered with tattered sackcloth. Thick dust motes danced in the pale sunlight that leaked through the numerous holes in the roof. Juma … Read more
It is the 3rd of October, 2017 AD. We are in Nairobi at a place we once called Langata. It is almost midnight and there is a woman lying in her bed; she is crying. It is an ugly kind of crying, loud and pained without restraint or decorum. It is the cry of someone … Read more
The gurney was the vehicle that brought in the dead. Limp, silent and unresisting; the dead laid covered in blue rumpled sheets. Sometimes their flesh quivered in the careless abandon of death. The men that wheeled the gurneys to the room where the bodies were kept had little to say. In their blue, numbered work … Read more
It’s about that time of the year where we here at Will This Be A Problem present our annual anthology. This year, we tried something a little different from the usual. For the 2016 anthology, we opted to incorporate an open call for submissions. The theme was Speculative Fiction and we received stories from across … Read more
The African short story is an established art form, as is the African storyteller. It is a comfortable format, requiring less commitment from both the writer and reader, but still delivering an engaging experience. In the case of Tropical Fish, an anthology from Ugandan author Doreen Baingana, eight stories are woven together into a satisfying … Read more
I The night was as loud as it could get. It was like the final blast to the end of the world. Shouts, shrieks, thrills and cries of passion accentuated the music, which was so fucking loud you could feel your gut vibrating as if the speakers were inside you. It was a big party. … Read more
I There was a place in Karen where the Devil sometimes came through to Nairobi. It was an open field of about a quarter of an acre with a few tall trees, sporadic thickets, and patches of stunted grass. The trees and the thickets had yellow, sickly leaves and the grass was mostly burnt. But … Read more