I am a homosexual, Mum by Binyavanga Wainaina
(A lost chapter from One Day I Will Write About This Place) 11 July, 2000. This is not the right version of events. Hey mum. I was putting my head on her shoulder, that last afternoon before she died. She was lying on her hospital bed. Kenyatta. Intensive Care. Critical Care. There. Because this time […]
Woza Moya
Maakomele R. Manaka revisits a soundtrack of his dreams, long and rhythmic and hypnotic across time, space and struggles. The music and wisdom of Bra Herbie Tsoaeli lives large, therein, at “the foot of memory”. Illustration by Donovan Ward. “Ba ya si biza, bathi e khaya, zi ya jabula ingana, zi ya jabula. Ma se […]
Homeless in the Afterlife
Death in the diaspora remains a difficult part of the immigrant experience. Bodies long departed can take longer to return. Myriad and alienating bureaucratic procedures often delay the passing of souls in a tortuous passing of time. Florence Madenga recalls the way back home. On the morning of 3 December 2012, Winlaw Muzirwa walked into […]
Paris-Algiers, Underground Class
by Mustapha Benfodil It’s romance landed me this job. I am a mailman of love. Yes. Let’s call it that. A mailman of love. I deliver sweet missives from one end of the village to the other. I am the memory of sweetness; I am the Amorous Conscience of the village. The kids here call me aderwiche. The dervish. A […]
I Travel with the Dead
Sudirman Adi Makmur spends an inordinate amount of time alone or in the company of strangers no longer living. It’s a waiting game, with myriad rules and regulations, in which the deceased, otherwise tagged as baggage, is not often the winner. Would you believe it if I told you that I travel with the dead? No, really, it’s actually […]