La nuit est agitée. L’eau se brise sur la falaise ; le sol tremble sous la puissance des pas des danseurs ; l’air vibre sous la voix des chanteurs ; mon sang pulse à chaque coup de tambour. Mon corps n’est plus que…
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Sugartown
Grace was not like us: she skipped goat-roasting gatherings when our children got jobs outside Sugartown; when our children were getting circumcised and we erupted in ululations on the surgeon’s final whistle; when one of us gave birth and we…
Teaching Her Father
It was she that taught her father, how to speak. He did not know the language of fathers and daughters. It was she that taught her father, how to be needed. He did not know necessity beyond daily bread. It…
Things the World Didn’t Tell You
Every evening, your father tore a page off the Bible, steeped it in water, and chewed. Every evening, he mumbled the same two-minute prayer before eating the Word of God. He chewed gingerly, steadily, reverently. It may have dropped forewarnings…
Uncle Mike
“Who is your aunty? Shift from here, let me not slap you!” Those were the words Maru, the Form Five dormitory prefect, flung at me when I greeted her with Aunty Maru a couple of weeks into my new life…
Twilight of Crooks (Excerpt)
The white flag floating at City Hall said it all. With the symbol of a mango fruit in the centre of the flag, Tumaranda—the Big Mango City—was juicy, wholesome, and edible for those hungry for plunder. All roads led to…
Bad Lake
François and his two colleagues, Fondzenyuy, and Murphy, stared at the gas siphoning system installed in Lake Nyos with excitement. Two very long polyethylene pipes set up vertically from the bottom of the lake to its surface emerged in the…