The Mantle publishes emerging critics, writers, and intellectuals in the areas of Arts & Culture, International Affairs, Philosophy, and World Literature. We pay close attention to voices with limited exposure in their home countries and the English language, as well as individuals experiencing censorship. Our online magazine fosters discourse with a global audience through critiques, essays, and interviews. Our Roundtable debate series allows for deeper engagement on select issues, while our Publishing arm features emerging critical and literary talent in print and ebook form.
Featured Titles:

Forbidden Fruit
Stanley Gazemba (Kenya)
$14.99
paperback and ebook
African literature, world literature, literary fiction
ISBN: 978-0-9986423-0-7
2017
5.5” x 8.5”

 

Desperate to make ends meet, Ombima commits a “harmless” crime. When he tries to conceal his misdeed, the simple farm laborer becomes a reluctant participant in a sinister affair. If discovered, the consequences could be disastrous for Ombima’s family, friends, and a spate of unwitting, gossipy villagers.

A delicious tale of greed, lust, and betrayal, Stanley Gazemba’s Forbidden Fruit is more than a dramatic tale of rural life in western Kenya. The moral slips and desperate cover-ups—sometimes sad, sometimes farcical—are the stories of time and place beyond the village of Maragoli. Gazemba’s narrative is one that could just as well unfold in your own neighborhood. Indeed, it probably already has.

Stanley Gazemba (Kenya) is the author of three novels: The Stone Hills of Maragoli (winner of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for fiction, published in the U.S. as Forbidden Fruit), Khama, and Callused Hands. He is also the author of eight children’s books, of which A Scare in the Village won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for children’s fiction). A journalist by training, Gazemba has written for The New York Times, The East African, Msanii magazine, Sunday Nation, and Saturday Nation. He lives in Nairobi.

The Sound of Things to Come
Emmanuel Iduma (Nigeria)
$14.99
paperback and ebook
African literature, world literature, literary fiction
ISBN: 978-0-9965770-9-0
2016
5.5” x 8.5”

 

A young woman loses her grip on reality, destroyed by being the mistress of a powerful general. A pastor hides the innocent from marauding gangs hyped up by post-election fervor. A philosophy professor struggles against his better judgment to save everyone but himself. In present day Nigeria, there are many centers of the universe. Told from different perspectives, the colorful characters in Emmanuel Iduma’s breakthrough novel illuminate the complex interconnectedness of a community where individuals struggle through their own painful dramas. The Sound of Things to Come is the disruptive harbinger of Nigeria’s rising generation of writers.

Emmanuel Iduma​ was born and raised in Nigeria, where he trained as a lawyer. In 2015 he received an MFA in art criticism and writing from the School of Visual Arts in New York. An essayist and art critic, he is also co-founder of Saraba Magazine and co-editor of the anthology Gambit: Newer African Writing. His second novel is forthcoming from Cassava Press.

 

Backlist:

We Are All Blue
Donald Molosi (Botswana)
$14.99
paperback and ebook
978-0-9965770-4-5
2016
5.5” x 8.5”

We Are All Blue marks the first drama from Botswana has been published.

WAAB is a collection of two plays by an award-winning actor and playwright, and includes a glossary of terms and a foreword by Quett Masire, former president of Botswana.

 

Gambit: Newer African Language
edited by Emmanuel Iduma (Nigeria) and Shaun Randol (USA)
$19.99
paperback and ebook
978-0-9965770-7-6
2016
6” x 9”

Gambit is the only anthology of interviews and original short stories by emerging writers from across Africa. Uniquely, Gambit‘s contributors are mostly based in their home countries—Botswana, Nigeria, Malawi, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. Gambit is one way to rediscover today’s writing from the African continent.

The Treatise of the Three Impostors
by Anonymous
$14.99
paperback and ebook
978-0-9965770-0-7
2015
5.5” x 8.5”

The Treatise of the Three Impostors is as an Enlightenment-era protest against Judaic, Christian, and Islamic authority. That’s only half the story. Published anonymously, the treatise is attributed to numerous dates, places of origin, and authors—some real, some imagined.