A last swim in a condemned pool leads a troubled teenager and her grandmother to common ground. A young woman finds it so hard to make her way in the city that she takes a drastic decision. A couple receive relationship counselling from a strange family grouping. A boy meets two exiles from Rwanda – one of them a gorilla – with remarkable results. A woman summons her father back from the dead. The authors shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize are: Diane Awerbuck (South Africa) for Phosphorescence; Efemia Chela (Ghana/Zambia) for Chicken; Tendai Huchu (Zimbabwe) for The Intervention; Billy Kahora (Kenya) for The Gorilla’s Apprentice; Okwiri Oduor (Kenya) for My Father’s Head. In addition, 12 writers took part in the Caine Prize Writers’ Workshop, held this year in Zimbabwe, where each produced a special story for this volume. These 17 stories – insightful, arresting and entertaining – reflect the richness and range of current writing on the African continent.