Fools’ Gold

Selected Modjaji Short Stories

edited by Arja Salafranca

An anthology of selected short stories, all of
which were previously published in an individual writer’s collection or
in either Stray or The Bed Book of Short Stories
published by Modjaji Books. The authors include Sarah Lotz
(internationally best selling author), Lauri Kubuitsile, Makhosazana
Xaba, Meg Vandermerwe, Arja Salafranca, Wame Molefhe, Jolyn Phillips,
Melissa de Villiers, Sandra Hill, Reneilwe Malatji, Jayne Bauling,
Jo-Ann Bekker, Julia Martin, Isabella Morris, Alex Smith, Isabella
Morris and Colleen Higgs.

Several of the authors went on to win awards for their collections, see below, and one of the stories was shortlisted for the Caine Prize.
Modjaji has a proud history of publishing debut short story collections
that are successful in literary and sales terms. There are few other
publishers who take the risk of publishing debut short story
collections.

Fools Gold was a finalist in the 2021 NIHSS Awards.

Price range: £20.00 through £21.00

About the editors

Arja Salafranca

Arja
Salafranca has published three collections of poetry, A Life Stripped
of Illusions, which received the Sanlam Award for poetry, The Fire in
which we Burn; and Beyond Touch (2015) which was a co-winner of the SALA
Awards. Her fiction has been published online, in anthologies and
journals, and is collected in her debut collection, The Thin Line, long
listed for the Wole Soyinka Award. She has participated in a number of
writers’ conferences, edited two anthologies and has received awards for
her poetry and fiction. Her next book is a collection of creative
non-fiction essays, travel writing, personal essays and journal entries,
to be published by Modjaji in 2019. She lives in Johannesburg.

Review

“The collection brings together works by
emerging and established artists which, through their diverse topics and
forms, offer a vivid account of the press’s commitment to
forward-thinking expression. The collection thus highlights as well the
power of the short story, which, as Salafranca writes, “can evoke a
world, a moment or a bright epiphany, that lingers and reverberates long
after the initial reading.”

Susanna Sacks, Africa in Words

Related books

Of Smoke Flesh and Bone

£17.00