For this sixth collection of stories seeking the most innovative writing emerging from the continent, we asked for stories of Africa’s hotels: grand and shabby, real and imaginary, pulsating with life and abandoned. Here, it’s not just the walls that speak (and weep); the corridors, kitchens, lobbies, bars and beds all have stories to tell. But none more so than the array of characters jostling each other across these pages: tourists, cleaners, children, beggars, honeymooners, cooks, soldiers, those travelling hopefully.

Check in to meet captive maternal progenitors, a dragon-breathed gangster, a herd of mystical donkeys, competing chefs, a prosperity pastor, and more.

Check in to read stories of anonymous hookups, the pitfalls of nostalgia, surviving a colonial past, imagining astonishing futures.

Check in to hear a chorus of irresistible voices -- from Cameroon to Zambia, from Egypt to Malawi.

Check in to Hotel Africa.

Includes the winning story, "Happy City Hotel" by Adam El Shalakany.