The path from Europe to Africa has been much traveled in literature but rarely in such an evocative, nuanced, and even playful way as in N.S. K/enings's THEFT. Here are five seductive tales that move with grace and subtlety between the two continents and reveal with insight and wit that what seem to be very separate worlds are not so far apart after all. In Pearls to Swine, a lonely childless socialite invites her American goddaughter to spend the summer in her mansion. In Wondrous Strange, a spirit medium is haunted by the ghost of an ancient African djinn. In Setting Up Shop, a young...

Against the backdrop of an East African city, an impossible romance between an Indian widower and a married Belgian woman unfolds in the most unlikely circumstances.