Makhosazana Xaba

Tingling with sincerity, Xaba's poems are as approachable and varied as they are rich. Varying between reflection and narrative, the poems present themselves as straightforward snapshots built from graceful language and a quiet depth. In a way, many of them reminded me of haiku: you could take them simply in a single quick read, and enjoy them just so simply, or read and reread for another depth of language and meaning.

In the beginning of the collection, I actually wasn't impressed. I found show more myself turning pages without getting more than a quick and surface enjoyment. After a quick dozen or so poems, though (probably just less than that), Xaba's voice became something more honest and resonating than I'd been seeing, and I began reading and rereading...often not leaving a page until I'd covered a full poem or passage more than three times. Not because of difficulty, but because of the simple and luxurious emotion I was finding in each poem.

In some cases, I could feel Xaba responding to works by Chinua Achebe, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Sindiwe Magona. At others, historical moments and race or gender relations. (My one quibble with the book is that there are some explanatory notes included at the back of the edition, but no indication is made when the events/terms are noted in the book, so that a reader who needs those notes must then go back searching for each relative poem unless they happened to discover them ahead of time.) As a whole, though, the book responds to attempting more than survival--life, individuality, love--in the face of forces outside of one's own control, and in such a varied and careful way that the theme is discreetly and gracefully woven throughout the work.

On the whole, this book is artful and approachable, and rings with importance. I'm looking forward to re-reading many of the poems, and sharing them. show less

If you are interested in the stories and experiences of people outside of the USA and UK (and Europe in general although this is talked about less than the former) I would definitely recommend picking this up. Is it my favourite book? No. But it does explore the experiences of queer people that are largely ignored. Some of the stories are a little uncomfortable (particularly A Boy is a boy is a and In the Way she Glides in my case) because of the topics they choose to explore - that's not to show more say that these make them bad of course! Just be aware that some have difficult contents.

This book does mostly contain southern African authors so although containing a diverse range of stories it doesn't necessarily have the biggest geographic diversity (I'm not sure how this changes in the second book). I also felt like it was slightly biased to mlm characters, but when I counted it up it was split about equally between mlm and wlw representation. A few of the wlw stories are more about longing rather than relationships though, which may have contributed towards this feeling. Of course there is nothing wrong with these kinds of stories though! I definitely didn't dislike them and they represent very real experiences and issues that queer women face. It just maybe made the book feel a little skewed. show less

Brief book of 43 poems by a black South African author who “describes herself as someone ‘schooled by life, politics, and feminism’.” (Back cover) Gives a good flavor of life in South Africa. Although most of the poems are short (one page or less), a few are two or three pages long. Each poem is on a separate page. My personal favorite poems in the collection include those with strong feminist tones such as “For Fanny Ann Eddy” (about a lesbian who was murdered); “Call Me Not, show more a Woman of Colour” (wants to be called a black woman), and “Tongues of their Mothers” (about wishing to write epic poems about six women honoring their achievements and being silent about the men in their lives). show less

I’m trying to expand the countries and cultures that I read so I picked this up for the library as a way to delve further into African queer stories.

This is a collection of 25 short stories from many countries across Africa and I found the best way to give each story the attention it deserved was to read one and then step away in order to absorb it before moving on. As with many collections some stories harder than others.

Only one story did I end up giving up on only to find out it led to show more an incestuous encounter later on… a lucky escape for me and not really something that fits in this kind of anthology and casts a shadow on the other works.

Overall I think this is an easy book to dip in and out of and would likely lead the reader to longer queer novels from Africa… Under The Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta would be one I recommend to any interested! show less