bota-writing-blog

[bota-writing-blog]

How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever.

(via psychofactz)

[bota-writing-blog]

Chameleon - 2

I am too early for my meeting. Even after I have made a pot of tea, opened the windows to let in the cold air and switched on the projector, there is no one in the conference room with me. It is my favorite room, glass floor to ceiling doors bring the garden inside. The beech tree outside twists its tiny circular leaves. They cling on to the branches stubbornly. The furniture is shiny brown with touches of suede leather. When I am bored and nervous, I slide my hands along the bottom of the table, feeling for the nubs of chewing gum people leave behind. I imagine them sneaking the sticky wads out of their mouth as they prepare to say important things. The table is slick and cool to the touch.

When people see me in the corridors they stare politely. Which means they look away and back, taking me in and releasing me. Their visual possession is intermittent. They wait until they know my name before they ask me why I am with the company, why I am living in Berlin.

[bota-writing-blog]

[bota-writing-blog]

Vegetable Love

Idris is half-asleep in the shower. He is not good in the morning. I have stopped to watch the children squeal and run, scattering the mounds of snow that are piled up outside the house opposite. A shovel is propped up against the garage wall. Perhaps the shoveller is sitting on the toilet inside, cursing the weather and children. Thinking of deserts, rock gardens and hot springs. A thin yellow dog is spinning in circles, snapping at its own tail. It is lost in the chase, dizzy with speed, and surprised when its teeth close on its intended target. The high pitched yelping reaches me as it lets go of its tail. The dog shakes its head, tongue lolling pink and returns to its dreams of flying. I laugh and fancy it knows I am spying.

Last night I had fallen asleep on Idris’s side of the bed on purpose, waiting for him to come upstairs. Instead he had picked me up off the mattress, tucking me under the covers as he settled. A firm kiss, a leg stretched over mine, an arm to pin me down and he was snoring. I lay awake for a long time, feeling my foot fill up with a numbed prickliness. Idris is a night owl. By eight in the evening I am nodding and pretending to keep up with the conversation. Idris is just starting to wake up at five in the evening. He is at his most animated by midnight when I am fast asleep.

[bota-writing-blog]

…you dizzy him, you are unbearable every woman before or after you is doused in your name you fill his mouth his teeth ache with memory of taste his body just a long shadow seeking yours but you are always too intense frightening in the way you want him unashamed and sacrificial he tells you that no man can live up to the one who lives in your head and you tried to change didn’t you? closed your mouth more tried to be softer prettier less volatile, less awake but even when sleeping you could feel him travelling away from you in his dreams so what did you want to do love split his head open? you can’t make homes out of human beings someone should have already told you that

[bota-writing-blog]

Know That

Know that

 The heavy numbness is the weight of your dreams

While what is not to be is still spilled across the floor

While doors are yanked agape

What was buoyant pressed flat by regret

Still hope rises pungent like yeast

And leavens the hard tight coldness

Molded into a shape hard to recognize at first

With practice perhaps you will see that

You are not done yet

Notes not heard as yet await your careful ear

Spaces to fill with solemn intention

There is still elation left in you

If the thing you wanted at the beginning is different now

You too are not the same as you were at the start

[bota-writing-blog]

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens.

Ray Bradbury (via thatlitsite)

[bota-writing-blog]

On May 30, 1975, the author and intellectual Toni Morrison visited Portland State University an...

[bota-writing-blog]

Chameleon

Today could be creamy bright, a real vanilla sundae kind of day. It is the tenth of June and I am a year older. Ilook at the mirror, straight into my own dark brown eyes.  At forty I have not yet begun to crack or dim. The glow of melanin is working its magic, coating my features in misleading smoothness. The skin is tight, pressing juicily up from the bone. Time has been kind. I am still waiting for crow’s-feet to land on the outer corners of my eyes. The claws will deepen their grip, bite into the skin until tears run sideways into my hairline instead of straight down my face. Eventually, the wrinkle fairy will sprinkle the lines onto the curves below my cheekbones, trace a fold next to my nose that drops to the side of my mouth. But not yet. The sun is still my friend.

 My face in the mirror is calm; the lips tilt slightly upwards. The corners of my eyelids are crinkling upwards with the practised smile I use for passport photos and meetings at work. It’s my fencing smile. I can handle anything with that smile. It gives nothing away except the white of my teeth. Inside it’s a different tale altogether. I feel my throat contract, the progressive smooth waves rolling downwards into my stomach. My lips clamp, turning my smile upside down. My ovaries are like firecrackers, discarding eggs in unpredictable bursts.

It is Thursday. Nearly the end of a long week away from home and the safety of fleece pajamas. My blue velvet couch and unrealistic American television series seem a long way away. In the office there had been little love on display all week. We are trying to stay afloat by charging the maximum and delivering the minimum. The eyes at work are hooded, sunk deep into baggy sockets. This is the badge of the dedicated, a sign of what has been sacrificed for the common good. Small discourtesies multiply like weeds; calls not returned, emails from juniors unanswered. The Germans like to say “Look up while stomping downwards”. 

Today I will have a German birthday. The first since I moved to Berlin. I will try out some things I have seen other women of my age do. Baking, high heels, brazilian waxing and a mixed sauna. I have decided to tackle all my hang-ups’ at the same time. Nudity, body hair, domesticity and discomfort. My affirmation for today is 

You are a goddess claiming the kingdom that belongs to you by right.

[bota-writing-blog]

Announcing the future

   She may remember

Sitting in half-light

Heart on the past

Innocent of danger

Watching little known

Disconcertingly intimate figures entangled

In a now that is over

Then they were dancing

The crowd raucous

His hands lingering

Her heart swelling

The earth moving

Today she is falling

His scent fading

Presence receding

He is searching new eyes

She is lost in his future

[bota-writing-blog]

[bota-writing-blog]

A place called out - 1

The air is warm and quiet. The sun has been up for a few hours and already the weaverbirds are starting to tire. The violent heat sucks the energy out of their cheeky morning calls. They interrupt each other in a cacophony of sound, each call overlaying the other, forming a solid carpet of sound that makes it pointless to speak. So we are standing on the bank of the Jengele river, waiting silently for our turn in the water with Esango. At thirteen, I am the youngest in the line of solemn children. We are arranged in order of age, with me at the end of the line.

Our meeting place is under the bridge, where the river settles into a slow-moving, u-shaped curve. I know this spot well. Big Ma and I have lived an easy half-hour walk from the river all my life. My toes know the feeling of Jengele’s squishy yellow mud. When we finished our work in the house Big Ma would sometimes take me to hunt river shrimps under the bridge.

I had waited alone in the half-light, ears alert for the sound of Esango’s hurrying footsteps. Or Big Ma might feel better, get up out of her armchair and come anyway. The time passed slowly. I had found a small stick to poke into the many small holes made by land crabs during the night.  When the other children arrived at full light, they stared curiously at the muddy stick and my wet feet. I had taken off my plastic slippers before starting the crab hunt. Esango had come last of all. He gave us no explanation for his lateness but seemed both embarrassed and apologetic.

[bota-writing-blog]

African Fiction Writers You Should Know

1. Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (The Whispering Trees) Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, born in Jos, Nigeria, writes prose, poetry and drama. His debut collection of short stories The Whispering Trees, published by Paressia, was longlisted for the 2013 Etisalat Prize for African Literature, and the title story shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing. His was the only story published on the continent to be shortlisted for the Caine Prize that year. He is the arts editor at the Abuja-based Sunday Trust. He was a mentor on the 2013 Writivism programme, facilitated the Abuja Writivism workshop in 2014 and judged the 2014 Writivism Short Story Prize. He also facilitated the Caine Short Story surgery at the 2014 Port Harcourt Book Festival.

2. Chika Unigwe (Night Dancer) Chika Unigwe, born in Enugu, Nigeria, writes fiction in English and Dutch. She was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2003 and won the BBC Short Story competition and the Commonwealth Short Story competition in 2004. Her debut novel De Feniks, written in Dutch and published in 2005, was shortlisted for the Vrouw en Kultuur debuutprijs prize. It was later published in Nigeria by Farafina Publishers in 2007 as The Phoenix. In 2009, her novel On Black Sisters’ Street was published by Jonathan Cape and won the Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2012. 

3. Dilman Dila (A Killing in the Sun) Dilman Dila, born in Tororo, Uganda, writes fiction and makes films. He was longlisted for the Short Story Day Africa prize in 2013 and 2014, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story prize in 2013 for A Killing in the Sun, and nominated for the 2008 Million Writers Awards. He has also been longlisted for the BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition for Toilets are for Something Fishy. His film Felista’s Fables has won and been nominated for various awards, from the Uganda Film Festival awards to the Africa Movie Academy Awards and the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards. His short story collection A Killing in the Sun was published in 2014 by Black Letter Media. His novella Cranes Crest at Sunset was published by Storymoja in 2013 andThe Terminal Move by Fox and Raven Publishing also in 2013.

4. Emmanuel Sigauke (Mukoma’s Marriage and other stories) Emmanuel Sigauke, born in Zimbabwe writes fiction and poetry. He teaches English at Cosumnes River College and Creative Writing at University of Carlifornia Davis. His work has appeared in Horizon, The Pedestal, NR Review, African Writing Online, StoryTime, Tsotso, The Rattle Review, and Arts Initiates, among others. He edits Tule Review, Cosumnes River Journal, and Poetry Now and founded Munyori Literary Journal. Mukoma’s Marriage and other stories, published in 2014, is his first collection of short stories.

6. Melissa Kiguwa (Reveries of Longing) Melissa Kiguwa describes herself as “an artist, a daughter, and a radical feminist.” Her debut collection of poetry, Reveries of Longing, was published in 2014 by African Perspectives. She was long-listed for the 2014 Writivism Short story prize for the story The Wound of Shrinking. She now studies at the London School of Economics.

5. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Kintu) Jennifer Makumbi, born in Uganda is a novelist and short story writer. She won the inaugural Kwani? Manuscript prize in 2013. Kwani Trust went on to publish the novel Kintu in 2014. In the same year, she won the Commonwealth short story prize with Let us Tell This Story Properly. Her other short fiction has been published by African Writing Online, Granta, Moss Side Stories, among others. She studied at Manchester Metropolitan University and Lancaster University for her Masters and Doctoral degrees respectively.

9. Zukiswa Wanner (London Cape Town Joburg) Zukiswa Wanner, born in Zambia to a South African father and a Zimbabwean mother, is a writer. Her debut novel, The Madams, was shortlisted for the K. Sello Duiker Award in 2007. It was followed by Behind Every Successful Man, published by Kwela in 2008, Men of the South, also by the same publisher in 2010. Men of the South was shortlisted for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize. Her latest novel, London Cape Town Joburg, was published by Kwela in 2014. She was named one of the Hay Festival’s Africa39 authors. She sits on the Writivism Board of Trustees and started the ReadSA initiative to encourage South Africans to read African books.

7. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma (Shadows) Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, born in Zimbabwe, is a fiction writer. Her debut novella and collection of short stories was published by Kwela in 2013. Her stories have appeared in various publications, including the 2010 Caine Prize Anthology and African Roar. She won the 2009 Yvonne Vera Award and the Herman Charles Bosman Prize for English Fiction with Shadows. She is currently a Maytag Fellow at the MFA Creative Writing Programme at the University of Iowa and one of the 39 writers named by the Hay Festival as potential influences on future African Literature.

8. Yewande Omotoso (Bom Boy) Yewande Omotoso, born in Barbados to a Nigerian father and a West Indian mother, is a writer and an architect. Her debut novel Bom Boy, published in 2011 by Modjaji Books, won the 2012 South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author, was shortlisted for the 2012 Sunday Times Fiction Prize in South Africa as well as the M-Net Literary Awards 2012, and was the runner-up for the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature. (source)

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram

Dedicated to the Cultural Preservation of the African Aesthetic

[bota-writing-blog]

Re:Map of London.

The one thing my Mum couldn’t move around the house

until it was a picture of a holiday or lost to me.

You looked terrible on my blue wall,

or was it my… the blue wall that looked seasick around you.

You made me embarrassed… in a good way.

I had to explain things to you

which meant my bedroom was never a place to lie in.

BE AWARE OF THE GAP

You were so grounded even when folded into earthquakes

and I was in the air eating bird’s eye food.

Flying fish finger sandwiches dropping asteroid crumbs on you.

Then Laying my face on your skyscrapers

But Captain bird’s eye can’t really fly so you suggested

I robin hop from robinneighbourhood to fly south for the winter break.

And then summer break.

Migrate at weekends.

Every weekend.

But this without wings grew yo yo tiresome.

Yawning M1 Robin Beak.

My Mum had a beak too. Beak careful. Beak cause. Be back. Beak careful again. When are you back?

ReMIND THE GAP

I love you map but you send me places .

You send me place.

You place me, send subliminal streets

from contour lines to rooms at the back of my eyes. Tube lines, overground, bus routes, I can’t get around you.

You jagged A2 postcard I need you taller.

ReMEMBER THE GAP

Written by Joel Kelly :

[bota-writing-blog]

Policewomen Old women look at my clothes, my bellybutton, and my lips My shoes so flat they lead me places that women who wear high heels and like to kiss men do not go Is it out of fear for me or for herself that Mother sits up at night writing recipes for okro soup Oma worries about the children sleeping in my bed After all, who am I to eat so greedily and get fat Strut so carelessly Laugh loudly hand in hand with their boy Leave that corner where the women sit, thighs pressed together as tightly as their teeth To speak so loud, swear and snap my unpolished fingers together And sleep in on Saturdays while the boy goes shopping Reads newpaper apps squinting at the tiny letters on the phone in the playground Wondering when fatherhood will be done and he can go home

Clementine Burnley

[bota-writing-blog]

Ministory 1 - Part 2

Before that morning she had waited for his texts which had come less and less frequently. No comparison to the deluge of calls and messages in those first days after the chance encounter at her friend’s 20th anniversary dinner. All the women had worn short cocktail dresses and shoulder-length hair from China and India. No curls, all dark, shiny waterfalls of human keratin. She had wondered which gods they had been offered up to, left outside temples or stolen from sleeping girls who would wake up perhaps distressed, heads lighter, missing hair they had been growing for years for a future husband to pillow his head on, run his hands through. Still, they looked good, these shiny, self-assured women with calves that exuded confidence, threatening in their fleshy solidity, nails flashing with manicured patterns even as the ankles balanced insecurely on impressively high heels.

Her phone would buzz every few hours with messages that left her cheeks warm. He had said he was in a relationship but looked unhappy, twisting his eyebrows in a way she had assumed meant, not in a relationship for very much longer. It had gone on for months though, demonstrating a wearying longevity. She had played the long game, ever the understanding mistress, welcoming him in with a soft smile, discreetly made up and perfumed, music playing in the background, Earl Klugh or an obscure highlife tune to demonstrate her understanding of their shared background. The African middle class diaspora, small, but growing and sending down roots into the communities they had entered as students decades before, never intending to stay as long as they had. Now they were old enough to be in the second round of relationships and men grown short in supply, to rob husbands from each other.