Safe House
Posted by Dundurn Guest on October 27, 2015
Safe House
Commonwealth Writers
Edited by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey
The Best Reads for Commonwealth Day 2017
As multicultural as Canada is, you have to appreciate the range of new international writers you'll discover from either one of these fantastic reads.
As difficult as it was, we pick a few of our favourite stories from each book to entice you further.
For an award-winning collection of short stories
Hummingbird, by Daniel Anders (Australia)
In a futurist, authoritarian world, employee #44014’s hummingbird dies. When bureaucratic regulations mean the old man is unable to obtain a new bird of the correct classification he instead gets a “Birdman.” This is a story that questions the very notion of humanity.
Sending for Chantal, Maggie Harris (Guyana)
The leaving of children with relatives whilst parents go abroad to seek employment is a familiar story, borne by promises of eventually being ‘sent for’. But what happens when a child never gets sent for? The central question remains, how do we measure achievement, and at what cost is economic migration to displaced and ‘broken’ families?
Notes from the Ruins, Anushka Jasraj (India)
A young woman newly-arrived in Bombay interprets the world through myth, crossword clues and a travel guidebook.
Devil Star, Hazel Campbell (Jamaica)
Devil Star visits Jamaica to take home to hell the 99 souls he needs to win the Devil of the Year Award. He targets the fledgling flock of Elder’s church. In Devil Star, Campbell explores the idea of sin, and the politics of contemporary Jamaica.
Elbow, Khadija Magardie (South Africa)
Elbow is the story of how Thomas Mayo was too black. It is the story of how he came to be too black and what happened to him for being too black. Thomas Mayo is a foreigner, an orphaned Zimbabwean in South Africa, out of place in a rainbow nation
For creative non-fiction around an African narrative
Fugee, Hawa Jande Golakai
Golakai is a Liberian crime writer and forensic pathologist. In Fugee she shares her compelling diary of travelling around Africa and coming back home, all during the Ebola crisis.
Safe House, Isaac Amuke
A Kenyan student activist flees Nairobi for Kampala where he lives as a refugee.
Walking Girly in Nairobi, Mark Gevisser
A gay Ugandan teen seeks refuge in Nairobi. ‘Gay money’ and the lives of LGBTI refugees.
The Murder of Rosemary Theron, Bongani Kona
A South African journalist investigates a murder in a seaside hippy enclave.
The Search for Magical Mbuji, Neema Komba
A Tanzanian writer visits her parents’ ancestral home and the village’s guardian mountain.
