Sauúti Terrors

This week’s episode dives into Sauúti Terrors, a bold new dark science fiction collection from African and African diaspora writers. Set within the groundbreaking Sauútiverse, the anthology brings together chilling and thought-provoking short stories. 

Last month, editor and contributor Eugen Bacon visited London from Australia as part of a book tour alongside fellow editors Cheryl S. Ntumy and Stephen Embleton. While she was here, we invited Eugen to record one of her stories from the collection for the podcast. 

Featuring 

‘The Rawness of You’ by Eugen Bacon (08.50), read by Eugen Bacon. This story is set in Eh’wauizo, the spirit realm, a dimension of the dead, and is from the perspective of our unnamed hero who wakes up in a strange hinterland and nothing seems quite right.

Biographies

Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author. She’s a British Fantasy and Foreword Indies Award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in the Shirley Jackson, Philip K. Dick, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans. Eugen was announced in the Honor List of the Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’. Visit her at eugenbacon.com.

This episode was hosted by Bea

‘The Rawness of You’ is ©2026 Eugen Bacon and appeared in Sauúti Terrors (Flame Tree Publishing, 2026).

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer). 

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here:  flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com 

Flame Tree Publishing, Best Indie Press 2024 & 2025 (British Fantasy Society). Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.