Twelve Rooms

About this Story

Eleven short stories, each set in a single room. A country-house hall where an inheritance is divided. A green bathroom in a Finnish flat being emptied out. A kitchen after a funeral. A grandfather's locked study in 1990s Nairobi. An attic that is not on any floor plan. A hotel room in Mombasa during the 2007 election. An underfunded Nairobi classroom between shifts. A Kampala radio studio and the caller who keeps coming back. A hospital waiting room at four in the morning. A Wisconsin greenhouse in February. A last room a woman cannot quite place. Idris Mwangi, the former Nairobi magazine editor, believes the short story is the one form of prose that trusts a reader to stop and think. Twelve Rooms is his case for that belief: intimate, travelled, unshowy, and unafraid of silence.

Chapters

1. 1 The Hall Of The Long Table
2. 2 The Green Bathroom
3. 3 The Kitchen After Midnight
4. 4 My Grandfathers Study
5. 5 The Attic Without A Name
6. 6 The Hotel Room In Mombasa
7. 7 The Classroom No One Cleans
8. 8 A Radio Studio At Three
9. 9 The Waiting Room
10. 10 The Greenhouse In February
11. 11 The Last Room I Remember

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