Book trailer: SoPhia, the novel (2012)

Click here to watch the book trailer for the new publication: 'SoPhia: a novel'


View more details for upcoming launches at our Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/sophiathenovel


Brought to you by WordFlute Publications, SA

Cape Town launches Belly of Fire (2011)

Dear All, We're on our final leg of the 4-city book tour, and the Belly of Fire team will be in Cape Town next week, 23rd Nov. See below for details and feel free to send this invitation to any erstwhile booklovers out on the West coast, whom you think might enjoy spending some time with us at WordsWorth Books, V&A Waterfront. Many thanks, Shafinaaz

WordFire Press SA, and Wordsworth Books V&A invite you to the launch of "BELLY OF FIRE: an anthology of hope, forgiveness, redemption, and reawakening" (2011) Compiled by Shafinaaz Hassim Guest Speakers/Co-authors: Dr Nazia Peer (medical doctor, novelist), Nielfa Cassiem-Carelse (book designer/poet), Luqmaan Rawoot (engineer, poet), Dr Lubna Nadvi (author, poet) and Shafinaaz Hassim (author, publisher) Venue: Wordsworth Books, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town Date: Wednesday, 23 November 2011 Time: 6 for 6:30 pm "Belly of Fire" is a metaphor for the anxiety and fear that we hold within ourselves; the voices of those who are disempowered by racism, poverty, war and gendered abuse, voices that remain silenced, are housed as fire in our bellies. Themes of abuse, xenophobia, war and displacement, forgiveness and reawakening are unpacked here in a collection of seven reflective, compelling stories intertwined with no fewer than thirteen contemporary poems that bring out the essence of the themes developed in the narratives. Fifteen voices are profiled altogether, to reveal the strength of stories that stand together against the structures that try to oppress and maim the individual.

Rumi, Journey and Discovery

Pilgrims
why are you turning round in circles,
what are you looking for?
The Beloved is here, why search in the desert?

If you look deep in your heart
you will find Him within yourself.
You have made the pilgrimage and
trod the path to Mecca many times.

You rave about the holy place
and say you've visited God's garden
but where is your bunch of flowers?
You tell stories about diving deep into the ocean
but where is your pearl?

There is some merit
in the suffering you have endured,
but what a pity you have not discovered
the Mecca that's inside.

J. Rumi

(Gardens of the Beloved)

Love Books

And so we have results this morning.
After a fabulous, fun day of writing, stories were put to the vote. The Book Lounge team won! Congrats to a powerful team of writers!
And our Love Books team came a rocking second with just one less vote! Superb, methinks, especially with having to collaborate with such awesome writers from varied genres, crime fiction, literary and chic lit, to non-fiction.
Written in six parts, our stories went live in the order that we wrote as follows:

Fiona Snyckers, David Chislett, Jassy Mackenzie, Kate White, myself, and then Isabella Morris to round off a wonderfully surreal, incredulous tale.

Find my excerpt below, and read the full story at http://chainssds5.wordpress.com



*** ***


You can't just bomb Randburg," Peter spluttered, sending shrapnel of saliva into the tray of hors d' oevres.
The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think of what he was saying. His mind clicked into gear. "What I meant was, there will be no reason to bomb any place, you already have a war on your hands, Flotus!"
"And what is that supposed to mean?!" Juju bellowed. "There are no wars in Africa!"
Peter's cellphone shrieked a polyphonic rendering of 'The Final Countdown', startling everyone around him. He balanced the tray in one hand while he fumbled his track pants for the offending device.
Once retrieved, he swung around in what he thought was a polite fashion, to take the call away from his mixed bag of spectators. It made no sense to think of protocol standing between Obama's wife, his stepdaughter and the nations beloved Juju bear, when he was about to take a call from his mistress, Clarissa. She had been avoiding him all week, and he wanted to know why.
"Babe! Where have you..."
The tray caught on a basket of flowers that decorated the table in the foyer, sending flowers, pebbles and glass marbles all across the porcelain tiled floor.   Everything happened at once. What sounded like Mrs First Lady shrieking in super high pitch turned out to be Juju in obvious trauma at the wasted food now lying amidst the flowery debris. Adding to the sight that met poor old Peter's eyes was Corenza looking like she was about to faint. Security and bodyguards were ushered into the scene, looking every bit like one of those FBI secret agent shows on the television. Mrs Obama was ushered out by what seemed a dozen men in black suits. Juju was gone. He might have vanished into thin air for all you knew! Or he'd been raised in some apocalyptic stunt through the roof. It was difficult to look towards the raised glass skylight at this time of the afternoon, a bright golden hue swept into the atrium space and lit up the entire hallway.
"Clear the area, we're coming in!" More of these toy soldier types filled the area.
Corenza seemed to be in some sort of daze. One of the bodyguards grabbed the satchel at her feet. A blade poked out of it, a spark of sunlight glinting off it alerted the guard that he had found something potentially menacing. He glared at Corenza, but she seemed unfazed still, rooted to the spot like some disheveled Barbie doll. Only when the man reached inside the bag and pulled out the knife that she had hidden inside it, did she finally look up.
Peter reached her just as her knees gave way under her.
He lifted her into his arms, and made his way to the exit.
"Hold it, right there! Where do you think you're going, Mister?" the man with the satchel said. 
"She's ill. She needs a doctor," Peter said.
"She wasn't supposed to carry weapons," the man said. "We're taking her in for questioning. She may have tried to assassinate Mrs Obama! And you're coming with us, too!"
Peter looked towards the lift door that had just opened invitingly beside him. Using Corenza's limp body as he swung around, he managed to knock the guard off his feet. Once inside the lift he pressed the button for the top floor. He also pressed a few floor digits into the keypad so that they wouldnt know where he had gotten out. And then he dialed his house number. His son Sam would be home alone, Sulenza was only due back home later in the evening.
"I'm in big trouble. Come over to the Sandton Towers. Will send you a text. Just come get me. And don't tell your mother!" He got off at one of the floors and made his way down the hallway. He tried a few doors. Using a trick he had learned in the army, he managed to pick a lock and quickly made his way into room 1452. He tried to put Corenza down, but she clung to him. He reached for his phone and typed Sandton Towers, Room 1452, and then pressed the send button. 
Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and before he could get to it, the door was broken down. As expected, black suits clambered alongside army suits for a piece of him. And at the front of this mean looking gang, was non other than his wife, Sulenza. 
"What do you think you're doing with my daughter, you sick bastard!" she glared.

**** ****

Chain Gang Challenge

Aaah, fascinating Monday it is out in Johannesburg... I've just arrived off a flight from Durban, after a weekend of family fun in the sun, and I'm sitting with a team of writers out in Mellville, on a chain gang writers challenge for Short Story Day South. So check out the website as our stories go live!

www.shortstorydaysouth.co.za

Xxx

Belly Of Fire: An Anthology

Belly of Fire is a metaphor for the anxiety and fear that we hold within ourselves; the voices of those who are disempowered by racism, poverty, war and gendered abuse, voices that remain silenced, are housed as fire in our bellies.
The stories in this collection grapple with real, everyday issues that face ordinary people. The poetry interspersed between them reveals emotions that arise from dealing with these issues, reflecting on them, using them to rebel or act out against the pressures that try to silence us.

Dodging bullets and filling holes

Evolution of the mind is a beautiful thing to behold. While reading The Museum of Innocence last week sometime, I was mesmerized by the layers of expressiveness, the obsessive, deep emotion, the frivolous made real in so many ways. Orhan Pamuk's writing can be easily put down for another day, or drowned in so totally that the rest of the world of work is reduced to background noise. Please note spoiler alerts from here onward, for if you plan on reading the book!

And so, the reason for my having bought and read this book on a whim quickly revealed itself to me. You see, while reading the book, I was taken by the idea that I could, after what seemed like ages, read a book just for the fun of it.
But then, I got to the latter chapters and was treated to the conversation between the author and the protagonist. And I was completely blown away. I realised then, that this was no mere coincidence. I was certainly not just reading this book for the fun of it!

This book turned uncanny in it's message to me. It was also rather unpredictable.

Readers of this blog will know that along with the courses that I present, I have been engaged in the research and write-up of a political biography over the past two years. This means that I have had the honour of meeting and interviewing some interested veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle; various gregarious and surreal personalities from around the world, Paris, the UK, South Africa and India.
The journey has been hugely satisfactory for the most part; a delight in many ways.
But I've said this to a few friends, that the writing of biography also feels on some days like a project of dodging bullets and filling holes. I know - it sounds a lot dodgier when it's said that way. It's not a literal exposition at all. But it's every bit as crazed and meandering as its meant to sound.

Until I read this book, that is. Orhan Pamuk's written conversation with his protagonist, Kemal Basmaci, is for me as a biographer, ultimately revelatory and highlights the many features of the biographical process and the importance of giving it authentic subject voice.

And many things regarding the telling of the tale; defining the idea that it's easy to want to write 'everything' that gets dumped in your lap. That there are many people who are loathe to the idea that much will be revealed therein, details which they had hoped would never see the light of day. [Some will go to lengths to make sure this status quo remains unaltered.] That there are some who will make fraudulent claims to history, when in fact they were never really at the front line, as the unsung heroes really were. There are many who will have the story from their viewpoint. And then, there is the view of the protagonist. And this is all that matters. In this way, the biographer's job is made clear cut, if not simpler.

I learned these things from Orhan Pamuk.
And I think that the path has been cleared for me to go on.

Everything for a reason, then. No coincidences, only plan.

S

The Museum of Innocence

I had never considered the possibility of an eloquent expression of anguish, until I picked up a copy of Orhan Pamuk's 'The Museum of Innocence'. This is my first foray into the world of writing that encompasses Pamuk's genre of work. Having won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 for his novel 'My Name is Red', Orhan Pamuk is widely read and loved, and I can see why.

Learning...

I've missed blogging, what with all the writing and editing and living that's been happening. Also, a lot of learning for me in this new year. I'm just learning that strawberry yogurt is an excellent (and guilt-free) quencher when you have the munchies at just past 1am, as is now the case.
I've also made note, that some of us weren't born to be pawns, and if we're treated that way, then we will leave the chess game and make our own way across the board games of life until we find our own space to breathe, to grow, to be.
And of course, even though I believe that everything in life happens for some or other reason (often not immediately understood), we have to pay attention to how life seems somewhat randomized, that we will collide as atoms do and that's one of the most beautiful realities about this whole business of living.
PS: This is a one a.m ramble. And at second read (I refuse to edit this!) it does sound a bit heavy and vent-worthy. But. I'm looking forward to an exciting year and a string of new projects and opportunities. More learning. More being me. More of this and that. More writing! And endless love.

Belly of Fire, the anthology that waited patiently for me to pick it up from the shelf of 2010's busy schedule, is on the road to being born. Yes, like a pregnancy. Speaking of which, I will be an aunt sometime soon.
And as of this week, I will be lecturing the Feminist Theory course for Hons students in Sociology at Wits University with Daughters are Diamonds as core text alongside Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. Accompanied to this is an exciting reader of fabulous material to be discussed in the seminars. The possibility of a play (if the department agrees) and a film to be reviewed by students. It's strangely satisfying, being back at my alma mater. And surreal at the same time, walking around the old haunts, remembering things I may have inadvertently forgotten.
I'm all set for an interesting year ahead.
That's the certainty that is my companion for now.
Good night, blogmites.
xoxo

This Place I Call Home

Book Review: This Place I Call Home by Meg Vandermerwe (Modjaji Books, 2010)

Home is a place of rest. For an observant South African writer, spanning the expanse of time, history, culture and landscape, the concept of home is also a thematic vehicle.

Meg Vandermerwe’s debut book, ‘This Place I Call Home’ is a collection of ten stories that easily captures the feel of what it is to be South African from just as many points of view. Peering through the eyes of a hijack victim, a hunter, a domestic maid, an exile about to return home and a range of others, the reader is made to see how identity is constructed, altered and challenged in a country that has seen many versions of reality in its time and across the reach of its political horizons. In addition, it also captures what it is to be a foreigner in South Africa especially with the spate of xenophobia that we witnessed not too long ago. Needless to say, each of the protagonists grapples with haunting emotional challenges in their personal spaces that are inevitably reflected by the socio-political landscape. These stories tell us much about where we have come from as individuals, separated by the colour of our skins, the hierarchy of our place on the social ladder, and the baggage that we carry as we move forward as South Africans.

Vandermerwe also manages to capture the authentic voice of each of the protagonists in her stories, which is an impressive feat on the one hand, but can be a bit jarring for a reader moving through the stories one after the other. One has a sense of listening to a line-up of ten people narrating each of their encounters, or reliving a particular moment that was formative or impactful, and then it’s on to the next one. More so because of the shift in timelines. But it is also precisely because of this that the many colours of their narratives standing side by side, tend to blend into a remarkable anthology of South African-ness that makes for a must-read for historians and anthropological enthusiasts.

But there’s more. We all have significant markers of identity and home. That is, how we make sense of both where we are, and who we are in the world is determined by the associations we make with particular things, specific encounters. Vandermerwe highlights these and the reader will find it easy to draw on the nostalgia that these markers evoke: a mango tree, a dictionary, the anticipation of a holiday or having heard of the story of someone returning home from exile. There are stories of loss and grief and hope and redemption to be found in this little gem of a book. Protagonists are challenged by disease, broken promises, xenophobia and a range of subjects that the reader is able to identify with; these stories will carry forth from the local to the global context an authentic flavour of the multi-coloured African dynamic. And the resounding theme of what it has meant to be South African, over the span of time and politics, comes through in the sentiments expressed by each of the protagonists; a domestic servant, a madam, a hunter’s aid and his master.

Vandermerwe deals in astounding detail with the issue of HIV/Aids, the inevitable cloud of superstition that surrounds the disease and the reliance or the faith that people place in traditional vs. modern medicine. The Red Earth is probably my favourite read in this anthology. Its characters don’t jump out at you; rather they sit beside you and allow you a peek into their deepest thoughts. They reveal their fears and prejudices. To me, that is the most remarkable accomplishment of the fiction writer; the ability to give the reader the opportunity to more than identify or sympathise with the character, but to really walk in their skin, taste and feel and dream as they might.

I particularly noted how Vandermerwe is able to denote class struggles in the local context, and the resultant mindset that arises from having to know your place. Inferiority is a powerful voice. Often more so than superiority. It reminds you mostly of the things that you do not deserve. And that you should know your place. This is the marvel of the post-colonial era. And it continues to be echoed in the economic reality that separates the haves and the have-nots. The writer achieves this balance in portraying both the yearnings of those on lower rungs of the social ladder as well as the expectations of those who teeter on the edge of the higher rungs of this shaky ladder. And so the reader is made to see at once the numerous layers of South African history as well as contemporary South African society beyond the shining tourist manuals. We also learn that if there are spaces that are sometimes unforgiving to South Africans, that these spaces can be even more threatening to ‘aliens’. In our insistence to claim our place, our home, we label the outsiders mercilessly. Strong notions of other-ing resound through the narratives. And we are made to ask questions of whether our existence is validated by this defining of ‘other’ and the subsequent removal of the alien other from what we claim to be our space. Narrative is a safe yet interesting way for these themes and debates to emerge. This Place I call Home is a book that manages to do this.

That the reader is made to read in the authentic voice and viewpoint of the character with such ease is the most enduring and positive attribute of this writer’s art. And this is what brings these stories home for us.

Home Away: Book Review

Never have I been so vividly held captive by the intricate balance of metaphor and narrative as I have with this new work-of-art compilation of travel writing that is Home Away. This spectacle of South African writing is anything but isolated lekker local stuff; rather it reveals the truly global flavour of being South African at home in the world at large.
Edited by Louis Greenberg of ‘The Beggar’s Signwriters’ fame, twenty-four writers have been handpicked, each to envisage an hour in a day in a particular city in the world. It is as Greenberg suggests, a collection of ‘…stories (that) blur fact and fiction; they contain a dozen languages and two dozen versions of the truth. Together, they write a South Africa for tomorrow that yesterday would not allow.’
At the very beginning, the anthology kicks off with the excitement of this whirlwind tour around the world in just one text. Vikas Swarup sets the scene as your conductor to begin this journey; be prepared. In addition you will meet an alter ego in each writer as you move along. You will be whisked through Nairobi at midnight, with a plot to kill a politician, and then taken briskly through Mauritius, Amsterdam, Sydney and Mainz before you can think of drinking sunrise. Havana is the last of the poetic night rendezvous; you wake up in the warm arms of Kampala. Not white. Not black. Purely African.
Through the morning you are swiftly guided through Lagos, Maun, Ushuaia, then onward to Oxford, Tokyo and the City of Angels, Los Angeles. After lunching in British Columbia you will commit the perfect crime in Moscow before being shown how to juggle odds in Dakar. It’s mid-afternoon in Patmos and Peru before you know it and you’re treated to glimpses of London and Austria. Ivan Vladislavic enlikens Oklahoma City to the Free State. A flavour of being South African lingers through the mind of each writer, each voice displayed here. The evening is rounding up. But it’s not over yet. Fairbanks greets you before you rush off to Paris.
Finally, a happy ending awaits in Hong Kong. The clock strikes midnight.
You may raise a glass of the finest. You’ve earned your wings!

And so at once, the reader is made aware upon opening these pages, that it’s a good idea to keep your seatbelt fastened until the aircraft has come to a complete stop. This is only going to happen when you have finally reached the last page.
Home Away occurs as a series of freeze frames. Rather, it feels as though you’re watching twenty four short films through the eyes of twenty four actors; each on cue waiting their turn to play their part on this wordy stage until the hour hand on the clock has made not one, but two complete circles. A day slips through the sands of time.
I had the pleasure of attending the Johannesburg launch of this new masterpiece on May 13. About ten of the 24 authors were present, including Greenberg, the editor and creative genius behind this work. While it’s true that these 24 hour segments occur as flashes from 24 different cities around the world, it also bears mentioning that these 24 writers capture very different temperaments, flavours and energies linked to their respective stories.


In this gem of a collection is to be found more than varied armchair travel, and much more than you bargained for if you were looking for entertainment. These narratives also tell much about the sense of place and displacement that comes of traversing geographical boundaries, sometimes out of choice, often because of some extenuating circumstance. A war, a heartbreak, a recession, an escape. Something might happen that causes a land of promise to turn hostile. And so you leave.
Our love affairs with land and country can be quite fickle. This love-hate relationship with our environment is vividly shown to mirror our ways of relating to people in Home Away’s string of motion picture type stories. We learn that how we create our identity is strongly linked to where we imagine we belong in the world.
And that the fluidity of both our identity and where we might be situated in the world, is a fuel to each other. Sometimes we want to stay where we are. Sometimes we just have to leave. We have to move on. And yet other times, we know that we will inevitably find our way back to the place we always called home.

The twenty-four resounding voices in Home Away echo one thing: that our sense of place and feeling at home in the world will always be foreshadowed by the ability to feel at home with ourselves. These ideas resonate throughout the book and its chain of narratives.

It’s impossible to choose favourites in such a harmonious treasure of writing, but I would like to share just three sips from the ocean of Home Away. The reader has to read the entire collection to be truly quenched:

‘In Kampala there are moments when I forget that I am white. The woman who is here doesn’t feel like a middle-aged, white South African woman. The light is muted. The air is warm. She imagines she is black, that she has lived here all her life, that she is truly African.’ The warm arms of Kampala by Colleen Higgs


‘In this perfect stillness, noise is obscene. I know this because a loud thump has jolted me out of my slumber. Even before I am fully awake, my Palaeolithic self is in full panic, flight-ready: adrenaline surging, heart thumping, muscles rigid, ears pricked for the slightest clue as to the source of the sound. I wait.
… I haven’t been back in Sydney for long. Evidently, this is my Joburg self reacting: naked feral fear, fear so habitual that you no longer notice it’s there. It takes a while to learn to let go of the unceasing anxiety… Here, in the dark of the middle of the night, I must learn to be an expat again. Remind myself that I have nothing to be afraid of, congratulate myself on my escape.’ Redundant by Sarah Britten

‘With or without electricity, my favourite city in the entire world is not dissimilar to a series of quick, sharp slaps to the cheek… My first slap comes at 7:01. I wake up suddenly to the sound of a street fight brewing outside my open bedroom window. I listen intently; the fog of sleep quickly lifts and my mind and body are alert, ready for a day in Lagos.’ The Generator Man by Moky Makura

Note: Royalties from the sale of Home Away are being shared between the Adonis Musati Project and Kids Haven. Both organisations deal with the needs of refugee children and families.

Say You're One of Them...

Book Review: 'Say You're One of Them' (Abacus, 2008) by Uwem Akpan.

We make easy associations of images with the stereotypes and myths that have come to be a part of how we make sense of society. Social divisions, national identity or age have come to be markers of behaviour and the way we relate to each other. So when we think of childhood, we have at least some amount of sweet, fantastical memory attached to it. The memory of being a child certainly would have held some moments of pleasure. So it might come as a spoke in the movie reel to digest the idea that childhood is a commodity in Africa. And Uwem Akpan brings this idea to life in his bestselling book ‘Say You’re One of Them’.

Never have my notions of identity and society been as steeply challenged as they have been on reading this beautifully orchestrated telling of story, this compelling oratory. Because that is what a book like ‘Say You’re One of Them’ must be described as. The words don’t just sit there, lame, impotent as letters on a page might be expected to; they jump up at you and dare you to piece the puzzle together, they dare you to drink in the images that are revealed of Africa’s brutality towards the most innocent fruit of her womb. The children of Africa.

Akpans anthology of five stories take us on an armchair travel from Kenya to Benin, than onward through Ethiopia, Nigeria and finally, Rwanda. And along this journey, the reader is held at the edge of the armchair rather than calmly settled into it. The stories are striking in their detail. Akpan makes no apology for revealing to the sanitised reader what life in Africa demands of its children.

We continue to insist that greed and survival are two vastly different concepts, and yet when we are made to see how they collide and bring the face of humanity to commit up until now, unspeakably inhumane things, then we are forced to realise the reality of childhood in a continent weighed down by inequality, unrest and all things antithetical to a natural way of being.

Uwem Akpan reveals this as his intention early on, and with little effort. And his methods vary: in each of the stories he is able to bring to the narrative the flavour and tone of the original language, be they indigenous African languages or the tongue of the colonial French. He takes this method further in his display of language as beyond the realm of just words and geography.

From the outset, this tapestry of stories expects you to step into the bare feet of a small child. At that point, the dust is removed from in front of you and any evidence of childlike innocence torn from your soul. You have to get it at last: this is what it is to be a child in Africa.

But once that veil of innocence has been removed, the ageless wisdom and resilience of children is beautifully emphasized. Akpan by no means glamorizes Africa. While his love for his continent of birth is tangible, we are made to see through the eyes of child prostitutes, beggars, those being readied for trafficking and those torn from each other on the basis of imagined social lines; Hutus from Tutsis, Catholics from Muslim. And then Akpan extends his metaphor: if it is the children who bear the brunt of society’s dysfunctions in the family unit, then it is Africa’s children who bear the brunt of a world wrought with inequalities.

There is also to be found a profoundly moving statement in the sadness of each of these stories, and yet it is the strength of these tiny examples of humanity that resonate for the reader. The power of the need to survive, to surpass the pressure of an unfair world adds a lustre. But there is work to be done and Akpan does this by allowing us to dig through the grime of the stories in order to find those inevitable questions about where it is that we might find ourselves on the scale of greed and survival. Without a doubt, it also draws a line in the sand between what it means to be a child in the world, in Africa, in the lands of the North and the South. And the answers glare at the reader defiantly awaiting rejection of their truth. Do we dare to deny that these brutal stories are more fact than fiction?

If Akpan compels the reader to continue turning the pages, and manages to awaken an almost denialist sense that such things might occur in the contemporary social world, one thing that we certainly cannot deny is his superb mastery of storytelling, his ease with language and metaphor. His writing is marvellous; his characters believable. Their experiences are a drought to the soul, but they serve as a reminder and awaken the compassionate in us, in sheer rejection of the evils that befall the weakest among us, mainly children.

Akpan succeeds in many ways as a spiritualist, as a humanitarian, as a storyteller in both bringing characters to life as well as stoking the fires of social awareness and conscience in the reader.

But most of all, he succeeds in showing the triumph of human spirit above the adversity that offends and challenges many of Africa’s children on a daily basis.

oOoOo

Uwem Akpan was born in Nigeria on May 19, 1971, in the southern village of Ikot Akpan Eda. Both of his parents were teachers and he and his three brothers grew up speaking English and Annang. He joined the Jesuit order at the age of 19, in 1990 and became a priest on July 19, 2003. He has also studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of East Africa and philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga University. He later earned an M.F.A. degree in creative writing at the University of Michigan in 2006. ‘Say You’re One of Them’ is a collection of five stories from Africa. Of these stories, ‘My Parent’s Bedroom’, set in Rwanda, was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2007, and longlisted for The Guardian First Book Award in 2008. After completing a teaching assignment at a seminary in Harare, Zimbabwe, he is now at a parish in Lagos, Nigeria.

oOoOo

http://shafinaaz.com

Greedy for Air

I've been enjoying my round of fiction reads this month.

Just last week, I got through "The White Tiger". Much can be said about a book that openly reveals that greed and survival are really not the same thing. The human mind forever fascinates me. The limits we place upon ourselves, as well as the new frontiers that are challenged in those finite boxes of sanity and insanity are largely unexplored. There are, I believe, yet to be seen examples of how much the potential of the human mind will surprise and enthrall, and yes, even horrify the 'clanging masses' rest of us.

Taking from the White Tiger, although situated in India, the story has echoes of relevance for South Africa; not just from an 'Indian' point of view, but also if we were to take both a human and then even an inhumane outlook. Okay, let's not pretend that we're one swathing mass of loving humanity; there are amongst us those who will sell their mother's left hand given the right blend of conditions.

Writer's like Adiga are adept at bringing that 'potential' of the inhumane human to the fore; of highlighting the irreverent contradictions of what it is to be a human being. And while I would like to imagine, still, that it takes much of a stretch of the imagination, I know at some rational level, that I would be kidding myself: I had barely put the pages of The White Tiger to rest, when the ET debacle exploded right in our midst. Not even for 7lakh rupees. Just. Dead.
Was it because of years of pent up Hatred?
Was it an act of Love?

I don't really want to know. A human life was slaughtered at the hands of people maimed by his own acts of terrorizing them over years. Do we really reap what we sow? This might be an apt example. Still, a human life is so easily rendered to a bag of bones and flesh and blood that oozes back into the womb of the earth. We're so easily turned back into the clay from which we came.
All material, mortal. There it is again. Mortality looks back from the mirror everyday.

Which brings me to the new book that I am reading, and reviewing, this time, for an Afrikaans paper: 'Say You're One of Them,' by Uwem Akpan. I am just learning, that childhood is a commodity in Africa. Akpan brings this idea to life in his book.

And. midway through the book, I am blown away. Now to scrape and claw for some moments of objectivity. Watch this space.

S

Imagined differences

Something fascinating happened this weekend. I met someone for dinner, had a chat, and a whole new world opened in my experience of life.

This is how it happens. Every once in a while you meet someone who affects a shift in your thinking. Or provides the answers to some of the questions you've been mulling over. Or erases some of the doubts you have been holding onto regarding something or the other.

Something. sOmething. SomeThing. There's always something that someone does, says or implies that causes something to stir in you. Realisation, joy, fear, anger, doubt, reassurance. Something.

For the most part, I think its that if we allow ourselves to open our hearts and minds to the world view of yet another person, a new learning happens for us.
Why some of us choose to close off this option is beyond me. But then, ignorance is a dreaded bliss; an empty bliss for most.

Everyday, we are as a vessel, filled and emptied. And in the ebb and flow of the life force, we are a moving energy, merging, engaging, being super-imposed with the energies of others. If you are a vat of positive, dynamic energy, you will find some people gravitating towards you in order to quench a thirst in themselves. Or they will resent your ability to drink from the ocean of life.
Life affords us opportunities to replenish ourselves or to cleanse ourselves so that we're not drained by the flow of energy. Being self aware is about finding equilibrium as often as possible. And self realisation is necessary for real growth.

Its really left up to us to identify these moments and to absorb them; to make them a part of the journey of awareness.

These moments reinforce the idea that the stories we live are the blueprint for a collage of universal living. And that we need to write these. That we need them to become part of something larger. Human biography is not just about documenting the art of life. Sharing them is a way of celebrating our humanity, rather than concentrating on our imagined differences.

#SpeakZA: Bloggers for a Free Press

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa. We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.

The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.

We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and the ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but a insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the Youth League President.

We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other Constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.

What can you do? To show your solidarity with 'Bloggers for a Free Press' please email this article or link as is, including blog roll. RT ref #SpeakZA


Blog Roll...


http://thoughtleader.co.za/siphohlongwane
http://rwrant.co.za
http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/munadia/
http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/shafiqmorton/
http://blogs.news24.com/needpoint
http://capetowngirl.co.za
http://thoughtleader.co.za/sentletsediakanyo
http://thoughtleader.co.za/davidjsmith
http://letterdash.com/one-eye-only
http://boyuninterrupted.blogspot.com
http://amandasevasti.com
http://blog.empyrean.co.za/
http://letterdash.com/brencro
http://6000.co.za
http://chrisroper.co.za
http://pieftw.com
http://hamishpillay.wordpress.com
http://memoirs4kimya.blogspot.com
http://thoughtleader.co.za/azadessa
http://watkykjy.co.za
http://fredhatman.co.za
http://thelifeanddeathchronicles.blogspot.com/
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/common-dialogue/
http://www.clivesimpkins.blogs.com/
http://mashadutoit.wordpress.com
http://nicharalambous.com
http://sarocks.co.za
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/stompies/
http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/
http://01universe.blogspot.com
http://groundwork.worpress.com
http://iwrotethisforyou.me
http://fionasnyckers.book.co.za
http://attentiontodetail.wordpress.com
http://blogs.women24.com/editor
http://www.missmillib.blogspot.com
http://snowgoose.co.za
http://dreamfoundry.co.za
http://www.vanoodle.blogspot.com
http://www.exmi.co.za
http://cat-dubai.blogspot.com
http://alistairfairweather.com
http://www.zanedickens.com
http://www.nickhuntdavis.com
http://guysa.blogspot.com
http://book.co.za
http://baldy.co.za
http://skinnylaminx.com
http://blogs.african-writing.com/zukiswa
http://www.mielie.wordpress.com
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/gatherer/
http://thoughtleader.co.za/sarahbritten
http://stii.co.za
http://blogs.news24.com/FSB_AP
http://twistedkoeksuster.blogspot.com
http://whensmokegetsinyoureyes.blogspot.com/
http://trinklebean.wordpress.com
http://commentry.wordpress.com/
http://matthewbuckland.com
http://blogs.news24.com/colour-me-fran
http://gormendizer.co.za

http://ravingfans.co.za
http://khadijapatel.co.za
http://moralfibre.co.za
http://www.missmillib.blogspot.com

Top 50 Blogs: in humanity

I'm having a pretty random day. And so a random search for my blog brought me to discover this:

Apparently, SoapBox Shafinaaz makes some random list by NetworkedBlogs as number 19 on the Top 50 Blogs: in humanity.

I had no idea that such a thing existed. Nor was I notified.
But it's obviously some part of the Networks way of marketing readable blogs at various stages; making blogs known to the rest of the blogosphere, and to pretty much the rest of the virtual surfers out there... What I am curious about is the criteria involved in making this assessment. The social scientist in me wants to know :P

In related news, "Memoirs For Kimya", the blog-to-book, is having an inspired new year so far :D

I'm the one that's at a loss for words, for the most part.
Yes, stranger things do occur.

Peaceful thoughts to all...

S

Temporary Madness...

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.


Captain Corelli's Mandolin6.

Tribute to a struggle veteran

“MICHELANGELO would have liked to paint or sculpt him.
Not just because his face, wreathed by a white beard of rare gentleness, had a hand-carved perfection to it. Or because his pair of ocean-travelled eyes seemed to say "I have seen, seen it all". But because his entire countenance, bearing, mien, were compelling. Like that of some Old Testament figure who has been drawn into the New, a friend of some past nobility that has stumbled onto a newborn's crib. The subject for a Basilica's murals.”

Gopal Gandhi on Maulvi IA Cachalia, ‘Legacy of Struggle’, The Hindu, 19 Oct 2003.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2003/10/19/stories/2003101900140300.htm

Literary Award Winners 2009

A16: Food + Wine by Nate Appleman, Shelley Lindgren and Kate Leahy
Winner of the IACP Cookbook Awards

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Winner of the Man Booker Award

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Winner of the Newbery Medal and Hugo Award for Best Novel

American Lion by Jon Meacham
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Blue Heaven by C. J. Box
Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel


The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature


Tribute by Nora Roberts
Winner of the RITA Award for Best Novel with Strong Romantic Elements

Biting off pieces to chew on

I have just done reading Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper", and discovered that there are far too many moments of writing that I could play a kind of contact sport with, many that I thoroughly enjoyed. There were also times that I had to put the book down for a bit and distract myself because of the fullness of the emotion that Picoult's characters are able to bring out in the reader. In myself.

Here is one of the extracts that I liked reading. Tightly writ, loaded in so many ways... A reminder of how I would like to tie my more purple prose together:

(Picoult, pp89-90)
"Is there any place on earth that smells better than a Laundromat? It's like a rainy Sunday when you don't have to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your father's just mowed - comfort food for your nose. When I was little my mom would take hot clothes out of the dryer and dump them on top of me where I was sitting on the couch. I used to pretend they were a single skin, that I was curled tight beneath them like one large heart.
The other thing I like is that Laundromats draw lonely people like metal to magnets. There's a guy passed out on a bank of chairs in the back, with army boots and a T-shirt that says Nostradamus Was an Optimist. A woman at the folding table sifts through a heap of men's button-down shirts, sniffing back tears. Put ten people together in a Laundromat and chances are you won't be the one who's worse off.
I sit down across from a bank of washers and try to match up the clothes with the people waiting. The pink panties and lace nightgown belong to the girl who is reading a romance novel. The woolly red socks checkered shirt are the skanky sleeping student. The soccer jerseys and kiddie overalls come from the toddler who keeps handing filmy white dryer sheets to her mom, oblivious on a cell phone. What kind of person can afford a cell phone, but not her own washer and dryer?
I play a game with myself, sometimes, and try to imagine what it would be like to be the person whose clothes are spinning in front of me. If I were washing those carpenter jeans, maybe I'd be a roofer in Phoenix, my arms strong and my back tan. If I had those flowered sheets, I might be on break from Harvard, studying criminal profiling. If I owned that satin cape, I might have season tickets to the ballet. And then I try to picture myself doing any of these things and I can't. All I can ever see is me, being a donor for Kate, each time stretching to the next.
Kate and I are Siamese twins; you just can't see the spot where we're connected. Which makes separation that much more difficult.
When I look up, the girl who works the Laundromat is standing over me, with her lip ring and blue streaked dreadlocks. 'You need change?' she asks.
To tell you the truth, I'm afraid to hear my own answer."

Anna Fitzgerald, 13. My Sister's Keeper, pp89-90, by Jodi Picoult.