Queer Africa – New and Collected Fiction (Modjaji Books – April 2013)

Winner of the LAMBDA Literary Awards- Anthology Category 2014

(A Boy is a Boy is a …)

It is 1985; the train is crammed, full, full of lithe brown clothed service men. He approaches
the ticket counter and buys a one way ticket to Johannesburg, then he walks up the single
lined platform. A sign hangs above the platform, it reads ‘Johannesburg: Departing 16h15’. It is four o’clock; a
train from somewhere has already arrived. It shudders on the platform, smoke rises
from beneath it, from silver steel manacled tracks. (continue reading…)

Sunday Times May 2013

(Central Kalahari Game Reserve)

The earth beneath me is far away, I can touch her and yet I am enclosed, this is a retinal experience, visually sensuous, no sound but the engine, no smell but perspiration, no taste but salt, 5500 feet above the ground and I look out. Arid semi desert below me, blue sky surrounds; an uneven landscape, small hills that are shrubs, bumpy green, and the sky, an uneven blue; hills in the sky, scatterings of cloud. (continue reading…)

He calls himself Rillke, after the poet Rainer Maria, he has just added another ‘l’ to the name, words are a game,
and this game is a killer, a cryptic clue, he plays with words as he plays with
people, all names, (continue reading…)

A brown dog walks along the sun path, red tongue to the ground, panting. In the brightness of the sun, he sits, on the veranda; (continue reading…)

Toumbouctou

The Sunday Independent October 2012For most people, says Monsieur Jaro, when you say Toumbouctou, it is like the end of the world, for others it is a place that is not there, but that is not true. I am from Toumbouctou, and I can tell you that we are right at the heart of the world. (continue reading…)