This February, Pan-African writers’ collective Jalada Africa released the second volume of its literary and arts journal exploring the theme ‘nostalgia’. Designed to go beyond memory as a function of time and space, both volumes made deep dives into tradition and modernity, the tactile and the intangible, legacy and erasure, stagnation and evolution, the possible and impossible. To round off this month of love and black history, check out highlights from Vol 1: Appraisal for Grief and Other Tales (released December 2020) and the newly minted Vol 2: A Brief History of the Earth Museum and Other Tales exploring the intricacies of eros (romantic), philia (friendship) and philautia (self-love).

‘The Sound of the Sea’ by Stuart Stromin

Stuart Stromin is a South African-American writer and filmmaker, living in Los Angeles whose work has appeared in Immigrant Report, Dissident Voice, Conceit and Rigorous. He writes about a tender reunion between two former lovers at crossroads.

Excerpt:

“It was already twilight when Tommy saw the long flat ridge of Table Mountain, halving the sky, and it took him another hour to find Kirsty’s white cottage tucked between the expensive holiday houses and the hotels in the zig-zag of streets which crossed up and down the littoral hills of Seapoint. Through the kitchen window, she saw his old familiar Fiat 1600 stop at the gate, upon which her address was painted, and with a shriek of delight, she ran, barefoot on the yellow-wood floor, through the front door, and down the porch steps to meet him. She took a deep breath. “Thomas Travers,” she declared firmly, her hands planted on her delicate hips as her former lover walked up the short path towards her with a small canvas suitcase in one hand, “I do not believe that you drove all the way here just to see me.”

Read more here.

‘The Well of Loneliness’ by Daisy Odey

Nigerian poet Daisy Odey is the author of the chapbook Fragments in a Closet which was published in the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF): New Generation African Poets chapbook box set (2019) edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani. Her poem reflects on those who are lost and wandering, seeking to find their old selves.

Excerpt:

Street lights drip yellow onto the asphalt.
I come along
With a pocket full of taboos and old despair
Dragging the future behind me
A hearse of mirrors

Read more here.

‘Four Days with Luwa’ by Joyce Nawiri

Kenyan writer Joyce Nawiri writes to keep sane and has published pieces in Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review and Pelleura. Her short story plays out by the Indian Ocean and a treasured letter shared by young lovers hedged in by family and duty.

Excerpt:

That’s when her eyes caught sight of Nani, sitting on a low brown two-legged wooden stool, two-stones throw away from where she was standing. She watched as she did the scrubbing, nodding her head and whistling along to the taarab music being played in the market. To the average eye, Nani was dressed like any other urban Swahili woman in a long dira dress and immersed in the colors and smells of the local life. Her face was made up and her afro abundant hair tied into a large round bun that sat on her head like a thatch. But in Luwa’s eyes, there could never be a woman more beautiful than her. She wore a zest for life like a second skin. It was spellbinding. A spark struck inside. That evening, after Nani invited her to her home, Luwa wondered about the spark she’d felt. What did it mean? Would it flicker? Would it die?

Read more here.

‘What Happened, Yaha? Where Did You Go?’ by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola

Nigerian experimental poet, essayist and writer of fiction, Kanyinsola Olorunnisola was a finalist for the 2018 Koffi Addo Prize and longlisted for the 2020 K&L Prize for African Literature. He shares a satirical tale of a mysterious, headstrong musician who challenges his country and fellow citizens to embrace a deeper truth.

Excerpt:

“I suppose you could argue that the problem was not that we did not know him, the man we called the Minstrel of Olduvai. Or that we did not want to. It was that we did not know how to know something that was, by nature, unknowable, defiant of the categories we had created for human beings. You could not pin him down in terrestrial language, with his undefined portraiture. His infamous capriciousness. His jarring foreignness. We lost him before we could really meet him. On June 16, 1981, he was declared missing, never to be seen again. Riots broke out in streets all over the country. In the tensioned weeks that followed, many young men would drown themselves in lakes as an act of mourning. As an act of their own disappearing. The government had to close down public beaches to avoid what was being called the Liquid Death.”

Read more here.

‘Loin de toi’ by Nelson Kamkuimo

Cameroonian poet and short fiction writer Nelson Kamkuimo writes in both French and English. Here he pines after the one that got away.

Excerpt:

le temps chante et
l’échos de ta voix résonne
la nuit profonde
la porte en son sein

time sings and
the echo of your voice echoes
the deep night
the door within it

Read more here.

‘Notes on the Earth Museum’ by Krishan Coupland

British writer, artist, game designer and publisher, Krishan Coupland won the Manchester Fiction Prize and the Bare Fiction Prize. He presents a short story about people on another planet being nostalgic for Earth, and for the culture (largely alien to them) from which they came.

Excerpt:

“One other thing about Millie was that, like a lot of Earthers, she was absolutely obsessed with love. She was always writing in her diary about it: when was she going to fall in love and what did falling in love feel like and would it be okay if she fell in love with her best friend from school or what if she never fell in love? She didn’t seem to know any of the answers ever, but she spent so much time writing about it you’d think there was nothing else in the world! Earthers cared a lot about love because they didn’t have the Lottery. They could marry almost anyone they liked, and so really they just had to be looking the whole time for the person they would be with, never knowing when it was going to happen or with who or what it was going to be like or if it would work out, which is a scary thought, really, and so I also feel kind of sorry for Millie because it must be bad not knowing what’s going to happen for the rest of your life.”

Read more here.

‘Imperativos’ by Alírio Karina

Mozambican poet Alírio Karina creates poetry that examines queer life and colonial remains. Their work has been published in Kenyon review, RelevO Journal, Blind Field Journal and Crab Fat magazine. They present love, despair and remembrance in three movements.

Excerpt:

encontrar carinho sem nausea, lembrar o viver sem
desencontrar a terra, perder—não abandonar—o
romance, demorar fora do caminho, luxuriar e
manter amizades—incutir. um cansado sem
distância, um parente sem desgastado, espaço por ser
sem ter de o.

to find care without nausea, to remember living
without mislaying the earth, to lose—not jettison—
romance, to linger out of the way, to lust and
keep friendships—to kindle. a tired without
distance, a kin without weary, space for being
without needing to.

Read more here.

Words Wanjeri Gakuru

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Published on 27/02/2021