“Three generations of white South African men were bound together at that table. Vermuelen was the first generation. He defined Africa, made it safe for Basson to defile. I was the last generation, the last to grow up in segregated neighborhoods. Between us was the silent photograph of Wouter Basson. Like a distant father, Basson was absent at the dining table.” – Henk Rossouw (Hole in the White ‘Hood). Also Mahmood Mamdani on Bantu Education at UCT, Gael Reagon on sisterhood, Binyavanga Wainaina on dis-covering Kenya, Gaston Zossou on African intellectuals and more…
Cover:
Strange Fruit by Lewis Allen
A History of Disappearance by Sarah Lubala (Botsotso, 2022)
Sarah Lubala’s debut collection of poetry, A History of Disappearance, centres on the experiences of those living on the margins, particularly girls and women.
The opening poem, “6 Errant Thoughts on Being a Refugee,” for which Lubala was shortlisted for the prestigious Gerald Kraak Award, sets the tone for this important collection.
The 56 poems span themes such as forced migration, gender-violence, xenophobia, race, mental illness, love, and belonging. The notion of disappearance runs like a thread through each of them, not only as an event, but, as Lubala describes it in an interview with OkayAfrica, also “as a structure of experience.” Lubala writes in taut, bare sentences, potent in their lyrical beauty.