Essays

Mugabi Byenkya

The Past as Insomnia (2024) The Lord’s Resistance Army war has been over for 17years but you cannot surrender to sleep. You still hear it: ratatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatataboooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom! You carried those haunting sounds of Kony’s terrorto America. You still rage at his…

Why the Snail is Slow Translated from Luganda by Ssebo Lule (2023) It’s because of the weight of its fat.The worries of this world.Maybe the snail is just lazy.It’s not in a rush for anything.It carries along its roof and…

Remembering (2024) The city clock is quiet,   did it ever beat in my lifetime?Perhaps in that of my mother’sin a younger Zimbabwe.At the edge of city hall,curios  are sold to tourists,   the streets still teeming with   civilian lifeflowing in and out of traffic veinslike…

Salimah Valiani

Me Too (2023) When you no longer havethe luxury of hope, you learnthat life is a choicefor the living and deathis a sanctioned transitionto another void. Yesterday I confessed my sins to the priestand in between slid in one actwhere…

King Kong Enters a European Museum (2023) full of stolen artifactssome out in the open,others imprisonedbehind clear glass displayscontending with ghosts of colonialismwondering howto fill a void of empty & how does one explain to the childrenthat their heritage was…

Her mouth was painted with what they wished was milk (2023) Mother lies on the floor, her mouth painted with white foam.  In a room twenty steps away  her daughter curses Mother for denying her the right to waste her life at a…