Thanks Kharis Publishing and NetGalley for the gifted DRC.

INSIDE HARARE ALCATRAZ AND OTHER SHORT STORIES was a great short story collection that provided insight into the various socio-political structures of Zimbabwe and her Diaspora. The vivid writing was dark and often disturbing, yet still compelling. Compared to HARARE VOICES AND BEYOND, this book seemed better developed overall. There was enough variety among the stories to keep things interesting while remaining cohesive overall. I’d recommend INSIDE HARARE ALCATRAZ AND OTHER SHORT STORIES to readers looking for a short story collection that’s on the darker side.

Inside Harare Alcatraz and Other Short Stories is one of those books that comprise an illness present in society called racism, present in the lives of Zimbabweans living in England or/and naturalized, an active disease propagated and promoted by the government systematically, since it affects to those citizens in all aspects of their lives: unable to access to healthcare programs or simply negated, being persecuted and profiled by the police because of their skin colour, dismissed or denied of job opportunities because of skin colour and their names, as well as being thwarted educationally because of their location, their names AND their skin colour. Marvellous how we have advanced as a society...

Some of the stories inside this book also mentions the problems the Zimbabweans as a society have to come to terms with in their country because they are powerless to overcome the constant abuse of power of their leaders, all the corruption and how it affects them.

It is well worth the reading.

Thank you to Andrew Chatora, Kharis Publishing and Netgalley for this free copy I received in exchange of a fair review.

The stories are told from the perspective of Zimbabweans in Zim and the Zimbabwean diaspora in the UK - brilliant perspectives. The collection started off very strong and while some stories were linked and some were standalone, each had its own direction. That said, I sometimes struggled to identify enough difference between some of the characters and the voice was very clearly the author's.

I really liked this shot story collection. I recently read We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo and after reading Inside Harare Alcatrez and Other Short Stories, I am actively seeking out more works written by authors from Zimbabwe. I would almost classify these stories as ultra-realism because they read like personal essays written by people with many points of view. They were all pretty good, and I would highly recommend Chatora's short story collection.

Purtroppo non è stato proprio nelle mie corde... Ho fatto molta fatica ad entrare nell ottica del libro soprattutto per il modo di scrittura e raccontare le cose... L ho trovato molto lento e secondo me molte cose dovevano essere spiegate soprattutto a chi non vive in quella parte del mondo... E non dare le cose per scontate...

This is the second collection of short stories I have read by this author and I definitely continue to enjoy this voice and perspective. I like that this a group of people and a culture that we don’t get to hear a lot about. I have to say this book starts with a pretty big bang, The first story is about the torture that occurs in the political prisons and it is uncomfortable to read it. This doesn’t mean it was bad or I didn’t enjoy the perspective, but it was a hard story to read. I think my favorite story was Tales of Survival: Avenues and Epworth. While I enjoyed some stories more than others I did genuinely enjoy the whole collection. While it is a small thing I did struggle to tell the difference between different stories and different chapters or vignettes of those stories some times because of the formatting, but this was an advanced reader copy so that may be different in a finished copy.