‘I could only reply that I think – I theorise – that something – something else – happens to the memory over time. For years you survive with the same loops, the same facts and the same emotions. I press a button marked Adrian or Veronica, the tape runs, the […]
One evening in Durban, F gave me two letters. One from Aisha and the other from Zeeshan. Written words for me, down the mountain in a bag, on a plane. And I, stunned, opened them, read them, my heart bursting, the pain so strong I could not see anything but […]
I walk up the hill, walk along a winding narrow street and at the top I find a mosque (later, I tell myself the mosque found me). I wrap a scarf from around my neck on my head, climb up, remove my shoes (hide them low on the shelf – […]
‘How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about […]
Sitting under a tree on the sidewalk at night in the French Concession, the Italian women, who work for a designer, dressed in heels , bright red lipstick, laugh loudly, smoke cigarettes from small silver cases, tell us about their friend who is getting married, how they are taking her […]
The orchid fell now. Right in front on the desk. The ending of anything is sad, I find and more so when it’s life. Today we passed a dead cat. A policeman, smoking a cigarette was looking down at it. I wanted to take a photo, fumbling for my phone, […]
‘And I cried. For myself. For this woman talkin’ about love. For all the women who have ever stretched their bodies out anticipating civilization and finding ruins.’-Sonia Sanchez
Laying on a yoga mat, my ear to the floor I can feel the rattle of the metro underground below me, making its way to the river to get to Pudong, rushing through the darkness, rushing under the water, carrying people waiting to get where they need to go, I […]
I will be reading from my novel Onion Tears and discussing some of my new work in Shanghai this week.
So maybe you walk across a bridge and maybe as you walk you see the leaves floating along the water and there are trees on the other side. And maybe you linger on the bridge, throw small stones off the edge, watch them skid across the water. And perhaps it […]
