"The Red Thread"

2016 Samatar, Sofia (b. 1971). “The Red Thread.” Illus. Melanie Ujimori. People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction! Ed. Nalo Hopkinson and Kristine Ong Muslin Special Issue of Lightspeed, no. 73 (June 2016): 61-67 with an interview with the author by Isabel Yap (321-22). Rpt. in her Tender: Stories (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2017): 262-73; and in Wastelands: The New Apocalypse. Ed. John Josephs Adams (London: Titan Books, 2019), 28-37. PSt, Public

The story is set in a dystopia after the environment has completely collapsed and people are struggling to survive. The female author has an M.A. in African languages and literature and a doctorate in contemporary Arabic literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is the Roop Distinguished Professor of English at James Madison University, where she teaches African literature, Arabic literature, and speculative fiction.