The Limbo Circus & other short stories

In these masterfully crafted stories set across southern Africa, ordinary lives intersect with extraordinary circumstances, weaving together tales of survival, betrayal, and transformation.

At a township’s edge, the child performers of an improvised circus develop impossible abilities, defying gravity and reality. In post-independence rural Namibia, a security guard protects an abandoned fish farm while harbouring painful secrets about wartime loyalty. A zoologist’s search for a new amphibian species in Zambia masks deeper personal turmoil, leading to tragic consequences. And a conversation with a seductive stranger on a flight to Addis Ababa becomes the turning point in the life of a young woman flailing between two cultures.

From a teenage girl’s near-fatal swim off the coast of Mozambique to the stark choices facing a naive man caught up in corrupt activities as the pandemic rages, each story exposes layers of human nature to reveal both beauty and darkness. The collection offers a deep understanding of the region’s social landscape while remaining grounded in universal experiences: the need for acceptance, the weight of secrets, and unexpected resilience in the face of failure and loss.