From Josiah Ikpe’s “Not Like Other Boys” which won this year’s Isele Short Story Prize, to IfeOluwa Nihinlola’s brilliant piece, “And Desire Fails,” check out our top ten most popular short stories of this year.

Not Like Other Boys | Josiah Ikpe

“There was something different and strange about Vincent Ogbu. The air about him was crystal-like as though one could tell who he was just by looking at him, and yet enshrouded like he was hiding something. The way he talked, walked, and carried himself conveyed one thing, a thing that compelled me, and at the same time made me roll my eyes in shame for him.”

Back to Base | Roseline Mgbodichinma

“As she walked towards her door, she laid out her simple plan: she would unlock her door, slump on her bed, and then take a hot bath. In the morning, she would wake up before the cock crowed and wait for Ezra at base. She would roll and beg and ask for his forgiveness and swear to replace the costume, to work for free for two weeks.”

Shame | Adéọlá Ládọjà

“The boy’s eyes felt like they swelled up and he began to cry. He tried to hold the sobs within but failed. The girl wiped his tears with her small oily palm and then he turned his face away because he was ashamed that he was crying, that he loved his mother, that he wanted to be loved. He also hated how Uncle had put the thought in his head and made him cry. The radio’s static vanished and the man laid his hand on Kòfowórọlá’s shoulder until he stopped crying because even without being told and just from the weight of the hand on his shoulder, he knew in that moment that he was loved.”

Are You Still Reading This | Nnamdi Vin-Añuonye

“I realize now that what I felt in that moment was relief, a distasteful kind of relief because, by every physical standard there was, I considered myself better than her. That day, as I approached the mini-market, all I could think about was Rizz, his sure and sturdy gait, his eyes when they caught mine, the small smile he flashed at me, but particularly of his right hand carrying that girl’s handbag, and his left holding a transparent nylon of takeout. The extra cash he asked for was to buy lunch for that girl, his girl? My heart fell to my stomach. You should have seen my face, Oyim.”

And Desire Fails | IfeOluwa Nihinlola

“I felt a strange remorse at having spent the night next to him. I was not sorry that I had sought comfort; I had accepted that I would always rely on the capacity of others to get over the inconvenience of me. I felt sorry, not about his arousal, but for all of the things we desire and do not permit ourselves to indulge. I returned to my room before the other boys returned at daybreak.”

bullets & blossoms | Victor Forna

“they do not touch. their choreography, fleeting, taught to them by chance. / they dance apart, swirl, arms cleave the wind, footwork more delicate than / daffodils in moonlight, sway, mirror images, soldier + madman, guns, given, / taken, their bodies, the same poles of magnets, their bodies, spinning in each / other’s orbit—dazzling—celestial—.”

Devotion | Kabubu Mutua

“As we washed our hands I thought he’d let me get off easily, that he’d seen me for a weak opponent and had pretended it was nothing. I remembered how each time he won he shuffled the deck furiously, keen to escape praise from Kala and Ma. He would say, “Let’s try again”, with the ease of a person used to winning, a person never satisfied with enjoying victory. When I won he paused to describe this or that opponent that he’d played against in his youth, his voice filled with a tender wistfulness that caused a deep silence to wash the sitting room, before he praised me and said to Ma: “You truly have an ambitious child.” There was a smirk on his face.”

The Disappearing Act | Annie Russo

“My anger came flooding back all at once, washing away every thought but hurting him. It would have felt good to hit him, but what I really wanted was to make him afraid, to be the mad woman who chased him off her property howling and crying because she loved her dead boyfriend and the daughter they would never have. My gun was in a drawer in the bedside table. I kept it loaded. I shoved past him and pulled it out, and it felt light in my hands.”

Wrong Portraits | Frances Ogamba

“”Sọnne digs into the sand heap fringing the grave’s mouth and heaves some sand on the casket already sitting inside the grave. The sand stomps the casket like marching feet. It is also the sound of the unleashing inside her, the anger she’d kept down for the sake of Ikeobi.”” At the centre, Sọnne has Elias in a chokehold. Some people try to detangle Sọnne’s hands, which have grown stiff on Elias’s neck, heavy even, as if bearing all the weight of her grief. Death has double-crossed her three times and nicked open a small war inside her. Elias is no longer Elias but has become the ailments that poked out of her parents before taking them. He has become the water that took Ikeobi.”

Chasing Blue Horizons | Oluwamayowa Bankole

“As the hours passed, they spoke in stops and starts. She learned that he had been visiting a friend in Port Harcourt. Also, that he had studied engineering at the University of Ibadan but had yet to find a job that fit him. She shared that she was a nurse, that she had left Enugu three years ago to work in Port Harcourt, and although she didn’t like the city’s constant dampness, she loved the independence it gave her.”