Carcasses of goats or sheep hung from wooden stalls covered with jute sacking. I walked through the marketplace. There was a mix of smelly fish, fruits, vegetables, flatbreads, woven seat-covered chairs, antiques, trinkets, jewellery, clothes …
We were parked on the street, at a sharp angle to the curb. It was the only street I knew where you could park this way. It was as if you had just pulled into place …
June 1976
Is it a kiss if I suck the lemon that you sucked, too?
Masuma looked at me but didn’t answer, and then she smiled, took the lemon back from my hand and sucked it again. Her …
Khalid’s phone vibrated under his pillow at three in the morning. It was his friend Sema. There had been two bombings, he said. Not in Mogadishu but Kampala.
Later that day Khalid watched the scene on NTV. Red …
The great Lamar Cleveland, running back for the Riders, used to date the older sister of my best friend, Jan Vanderhoek. It was 1968. Jan and I were in the same class at school and we lived across the …
My waist buzzed. It was the radio tied to the belt holding up my pair of khaki trousers. The husky voice over the radio-call spoke.
…Our chief commander was captured by the government soldiers last night. We
(from the forthcoming novel, “I Did not Ask to be Born”)
“Dinga has asked me to marry him.”
Khethiwe glanced at me as though I had just announced that Popi our dog, had birthed …
How did I get entangled with someone who couldn’t say my name correctly? Brenda came to me from the place where the word awkward was first mentioned. I’ve tried to convince myself that …
My video camera is the last thing I am packing into my bag as I plan to leave Aleppo tonight. A while ago, I saved all the files in a secret email address only my …
It was only a coarse brown envelope from home, but it fetched a smile of pleasure in me. I had been feeling low, facing an uncertain future as an international student studying in Toronto. The latest …
