Cassava Press launches Shorts imprint with Kan collection

Cassava Republic Press is launching its new Shorts imprint with a collection of stories from Toni Kan.

Released on 30th April, Nights of the Creaking Bed is a collection of 15 tales about love, rage, fear, violence, and kindness, where “hope is often extinguished but the human spirit prevails”. The publisher said: “The collection is a memorable, remarkable kaleidoscope made up of the shouts of bus conductors, the cruelty of street boys, the corruption of police, the deception of strangers, the power of the kind word.”

Kan lives in Lagos and worked as a journalist before moving on to work in banking and telecoms. He is the author of five works of fiction and poetry including The Carnivorous City (Cassava Republic). He has also ghost-written seven biographical works.

The book is being published by Cassava Shorts, a new imprint publishing three collections each year. Better Never Than Late by Chika Unigwe follows in September with Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s collection The Whispering Trees coming in October.

Publishing director Bibi Bakare-Yusuf said: “With this new series I want to celebrate the short story’s potential to reactivate a love of good old-fashioned story telling in pithy form. Our aim is to both stimulate debate and entertain by publishing distinctive and thought-provoking short story collections by some of the continent’s best-known writers.”