Forgotten Memories
Perhaps this new life offers him an opportunity to rectify past mistakes, to be a different man from the one who once cast shadows on the canvas of their relationship, creating a portrait of pain by pulling her ponytail, tossing her upon the upholstery, and molding his fists into her frail body like an unrelenting sculptor shaping unforgiving clay.
A Post-Apartheid Education for Girls
In school we learnt a great deal about Voortrekkers and spear formations, but we never learnt about what Black men went through during Apartheid, and how they left behind women who raised children in poverty and despair — alone.
Desi
Rain splattered across the window pane. It thwacked hard as a sheen shrouded the glass. Mensa peered across at the dense foliage dripping outside with August globules, leaf blades ripe with gossamer as lightning flashed.
Number Ninety-Four
Where is he? The man? Her one true love? He asks her to pick him up from this very bus stop — the last bus at 94. She wears a pink, floral sari which wraps around her young, smooth body. The bus never comes.
Kayla’s Day
Pa doesn’t want to hear about the shooting, and he doesn’t want to talk about Nilah. And I’m scared.
Zain
Would Zain tell him everything about his life? About his boyfriend Tarun, who was half Jamaican and half Indian and cooked him a meal every evening?
The Crow Nest
I watch her trying to mold into a role she can never be. Especially as a Native American woman married to an older White man like him.
Beneath the Veil
Postmodern Ghana was rough, from the prestigious jobs offered to recent grads on a who-you-know basis to the numerous job applications that required three years plus experience. Like how? It seemed like his country just wanted him to lose it.
Idee Fixe
She had not wanted this, this ache in her chest that felt like it was choking her from the inside. She had only wanted a taste, had only wanted to be the person who could afford something she yearned for so dearly.
Monarch
In the evening, when everyone came back from working in the fields, after dinner was eaten and dishes washed, we sat around to watch I Love Lucy in English and eat blush-colored grapefruits and mangos the color of Mojave sunsets.
Too Ample Pockets
It doesn’t matter that these women have been up since five in the morning, or that their hands prepared the feast that will be unleashed on guests in a few minutes.
The Bride’s Passage
“So, we will get fresh catfish and come kilos of chicken at the market. Let me see whether your barrister brain can still cook a pot of soup.” Mummy was laughing, but Kelechi looked away.
The Sling
He could remember very carefully that this was not the first time they were using food as a weapon to suppress the Africans. When they were coming to colonize the country, they brought in soldiers from Europe to come and fight the Africans.
The Trenchcoats
“I can never bring myself to work for the same people who have enslaved us!” she said fiercely. “I too would be dead if it was not for my father. Much as he hates me, he can’t stand the shame seeing his only daughter dead of starvation.”
Don’t Come Looking for Me, Father
He accused Portuguese of being the “language of the colonizer” and defended the urgent prioritizing of the African “national languages” spoken in Angola. This was another of the theories that he considered essential for the future of the nation.
the Decolonial Passage 