F.T. Kola (South Africa) 

A PARTY FOR THE COLONEL (ONE STORY, INC. BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY, 2014)

F.T. Kola was born in South Africa, grew up in Australia, and lived in London and New York City before pursuing an MFA at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Austin, where she is a fellow in fiction. “A Party For The Colonel” is her first published story.

What it's about: A grandfather trying to blend into a world in which he would never belong is inadvertently exposed at a party by the young child of his activist son.

Read it for: Narrated through the eyes of the Colonel’s wife’s insecurities, this story is an emotive look at the nuances and exploitative hierarchies of South Africa’s apartheid system from an Indian family’s perspective.