Dele Sikuade

African fiction · Horror · Folklore

Stories from Nigeria, where mysticism meets the everyday

I'm Dele Sikuade. I write African fiction: horror, mysticism and the Yoruba folklore I grew up with. Nigeria will always be the setting of my African tales. A country where 40 million evangelical Christians go to church every Sunday to protect themselves from witchcraft is a source of constant delight and wonder.

New: Tales of African Mysticism, Volume I: Yomi's Stories. Meet Yomi: wanderer, raconteur and unlikely man of learning, whom the supernatural will not leave alone.

About the bookBuy on Amazon

Cover of Tales of African Mysticism, Volume I: Yomi's Stories. A barefoot man with long grey dreadlocks, dressed in white and carrying a sack and a carved staff, walks a dusty path through dry savannah at sunset. Gold title lettering on a dark band above, the author's name below.

Novels and collections

Òrìṣà

When Tola vanishes, the playground whispers of Gbomogbomo child snatchers and Òrìṣàs return to haunt her mother.

Eégún

A nun frozen to death in thirty-degree heat. A verdict of natural causes. One police officer who won't let it go.

Free to read

Short stories you can read here, now, for nothing.

  • Blessed Are the Meek

    A few months ago I saw a protester in Lagos carrying a placard that said: "When the poor have nothing to eat, the poor shall eat the rich". In these troubled times I fear the slogan may have been prophetic. This is a story about what might happen if an aggrieved man had the power to press ctrl-alt-delete and reboot the world.

  • Certainly Sir

    Can AI be used to plan the perfect murder? Certainly Sir.

  • Seven and It's Heaven

    Based on a question that once sprung to mind - would a dead racist think Heaven was Heavenly if it contained people of other ethnicity - this is a light-hearted story of a man who finds the reality of Heaven falls short of his expectations.

  • The Alchemist: Fin Bheara's Gift

    Callum is looking for the secret of alchemy, the ability to turn base metal into gold. Like many alchemists he believes in the occult. He reaches out to Fin Bheara, legendary King of the Faerie, and gets a bit more than he bargained for.

All free stories →

For children

Knights of the Tall Fable: Sir Hugo, the youngest and bravest knight of Hamelot.

Sir Hugo and the Dwagon

The knights of Hamelot remember urgent appointments, which leaves Sir Hugo to face the dragon. Or is it a dwagon?

Sir Hugo and the Tournament

A mysterious Black Knight wins every joust. Sir Hugo and the short-sighted Sir Colin set out to find the trick.