A vivid tapestry of identity, tradition, and struggle in post-apartheid South Africa

Bhajee’s concern is a stolen electricity meter linked to a fictional Mr. Ka Ching Ching, and Suhail Mangel, a victim of xenophobia, is worried about a family curse. A Maulana is thought to have a marriage potion, and a dying parrot brings bad news. A woman tries to fathom her broken marriage during Covid-19 lockdown, a family fights for inheritance in the face of religious law, and a cat brings gifts to her depressed owner. A daughter-in-law questions her roles as wife and mother, and a woman is offered a surrogate in the form of a second wife.

Readers are welcomed into the noise of daily Lenasian life through ten superbly crafted short stories told by diverse narrators. Underneath these cultural snapshots are central themes that run throughout the collection, such as patriarchy, family honor, communal pressure, spirituality, and trauma. The stories provide a rethinking of conventions and roles, enabling readers to challenge social phenomena governed by religion and culture within post-apartheid South Africa. 

These earthy portraits expose the complicated weave of emotions often concealed beneath everyday lives. The colourful characters cast their paths through the threads of their own fictional lives, as distraught and jubilant and uncertainly fragmented as any among us, the living.