New Read

The summer issue of SNReview features my short story "Mopane Whips". Below is an extract:

My brother. He was the most accomplished village fighter, one of the few able-bodied men remaining in the village. Most had left for the war, but brother said he had been lucky because when village men his age started joining the liberation struggle, he was in South Africa . Now it was much harder for anyone to force him to join the war since he said he knew how to argue. He once told me that one did not have to join the comrades to be part of the struggle. He was already fighting a great war raising a young boy and also keeping healthy livestock, which the comrades demanded for food each time they held a base in our village. Since brother was not at war, Mai, his mother, whom I also called mother since my birth mother had died immediately after I was born, always said that he was bored being one of the few men remaining in the village, so then he entertained himself with fights. But I liked to watch him fight; I really did. I only hated when he used those massive fists on me, saying I needed to know how real men’s fists felt. When he was serious about beating me, though, he would send me to get a strong Mopane whip for myself. Read more