When the World Wounds

“Salaam treats words like the seductive weapons they are. She wields them to weave fierce, gorgeous stories that stroke your sensibilities, challenge your preconceptions and leave you breathless with their beauty.”—Nalo Hopkinson, Author of the Nebula nominated novel The New Moon's Arms

Kiini Ibura Salaam’s short stories (and the characters who inhabit them) are vital, fantastic in all senses of the word, audacious and tender.”—Kelly Link, author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated collection Get In Trouble

In this eagerly-awaited collection, Kiini Ibura Salaam continues her exploration of the dark, the sensual, and the mysterious with fiction that disturbs, delights, and dazzles. The five stories and one novella collected in When the World Wounds examine the tumultuous nature of the human condition through such wild imaginings as sensual encounters with deer, escapism in a dystopic prison, and volcano women. In “The Taming,” a lupine creature is trapped by beasts whose nefarious nature is beyond their prey’s understanding. In “Hemmie’s Calenture,” a woman escaping enslavement is thrust into a war between gods. “The Pull of the Wing” is the prequel to Salaam’s wildly popular Of Wings, Nectar, and Ancestors trilogy. “Because of the Bone Man” transports readers to the desolate landscape of post-Katrina New Orleans and the struggle of the city’s culture bearers to carry on.

A welcome follow-up to Salaam’s award-winning Ancient, Ancient, When the World Wounds is perceptive and engaging as it examines our world’s callous and perilous landscapes while tickling the imagination and startling the senses.

“Kiini Ibura Salaam is a natural-born storyteller and a gorgeous writer who chooses her characters and words with the care and skill of a poet. Her stories are transformative, wise and vivid with the quality of fantasy and fable. I loved reading this!”—Sherre Renée Thomas, Editor of the World Fantasy Award winning anthology Dark Matter: Reading the Bones

“Salaam’s collection… introduces readers to alternate worlds built around magic, sensuality, sexuality, and the search for emotional comfort, however tenuous. … Salaam’s unusual settings and lonely characters will call to readers who hunger for sex, identity, or just a place to belong.”—Publishers Weekly

Kiini Ibura Salaam's first collection Ancient, Ancient (Aqueduct Press, 2012) won the James Tiptree Award. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.