A collaboration between Tor and Fiyah Magazine, this special Breathe Fiyah issue features eight short stories (entirely flash fiction) by Black writers exploring race, oppression, resistance, and revolution through a speculative lens. The stories are largely (though not completely) contemporary, both fantasy and science fiction (with some horror elements thrown in as well at times), and they create a framework, one that ends up resembling perhaps a structure of kindling. Each piece a small addition that, when put together and struck, sets off a blaze. The stories are about resisting, about surviving a world that is actively trying to erase, exploit, and exterminate you. And the works do indeed spark and smolder, ending with a bang that, hopefully, will shake things up, weakening the racist and white supremacist structures that marginalize Black writers. To the reviews!
Fiyah is back with a new issue and four original stories and three new poems! It’s also the third non-themed issue in a row, and gathers up stories that feature science fiction, fantasy, and touches of horror. And there are some things that run throughout the works, most prominent to me the theme of memory. The stories tie into memory and history, showing the weight that the characters carry because of their pasts, because of the systems that have been built over time, that carry with them memories codified into traditions and rituals. Some of the characters are running from those memories, some trying their best to hold onto them. Whatever the case, though, the works explore what it means to remember, what it means to engage with a world that itself can seem alive and not always concerned about the lives of the people living inside it. It’s a wonderful issue, and I’ll get right to my reviews!
