Two independent publishers and writers in Cape Town, Joanne Hichens and Karina M Szczurek, are keeping the short story flame burning in SA. While Hichens runs Tattoo Press, which publishedOne Life, Szczurek founded Karavan Press five years ago, and it publishedIn Other Stories.
Edited by poet and writer Kerry Hammerton, In Other Stories is a slim volume of flash, encompassing both fiction as well as some memoir pieces. As to a definition of “flash”, Hammerton answers this in the introduction to the volume: “A flash is not simply a story that has been pared back to its bare bones. Instead, it concentrates on movement, every word and sentence is important to the progression of the story.” She adds that what happens off the page is as important as what happens on it.
Hammerton sent out a call for submissions and limited the word count to 500 words. The themes explored in this anthology are wide-ranging, from grief and SA’s first democratic election in 1994 to a merboy fable.
Accompanying each story is a biography of each writer and an explanation of how each flash came to be, which adds immeasurably to each story. The Best American Short Story series also includes this device, and it’s always illuminating reading these explanations.
Here are some of the highlights.
The prosaically titled Rust in my Heart by Yvonne Sliep cleverly incorporates haiku in a story about the effects of war on ordinary people, from World War 2 to the Angolan Border War.
Nozipho by Siphosethu Siwaphiwe Zazela is heartbreaking, a real standout of the collection. It recounts the arranged marriage (Ukuthwala) of 15-year-old Nozipho to an elderly man. When she runs away from her new husband, she also runs slap bang into the constraints of her culture.
Sarah Buchner’s memorable flash memoir, Sweet Peas and Gold-edged Plates recalls a time spent in The Fort, a psychiatric hospital, when she was younger, recounting the people she met there.
Szczurek’s Nobody Too is a whimsical tale of the discovery of a poetic impulse. Hammerton’s astonishing story, It Happened Like This, is about a teenager driving with her father taking an elderly pet to the vet, distracted by thoughts of the school disco.
The Unfinished Bridge by Stephen Devereux is a delightful and clever take on what happens when the tables are turned, when an executive picks up a man who has been begging at the robots.
Managing grief is at the heart of Yellow Curtains by Nontobeko Mtshali, a window into the mind of someone suffering a sister’s death, who must still work, log in to Zoom, and pass through the world as though nothing has upset it. Grief is also present in Colleen Higgs’ portrait of divorce in The First Divorce. This is a subtle and skilful flash, highlighting the devastation of divorce in clean and poignant lines.
Windows by Erica Livingston, however, provides a lively portrait of various people living in an apartment block.
While In Other Stories shows what can be achieved in 500 words or less, One Life presents a range of short stories that are 5,000 words or less. This annual anthology arises out of a competition run by Short.Sharp.Stories. It centres on a theme, in this case the acronym YOLO (you only live once).
Two writers shared the top winning spot, Jarred Thompson and Don Makatile.
Thompson’s The Apophatic Mountain is a cleverly metaphorical tale set in a land divided by a mountain into the north and the south. There’s a sense of mystery and danger in it, scientists come to discover its secrets of bucchu and rooibos, a village conspires to get rid of “Sunset”, and superstition abounds in this claustrophobic world. It isn’t hard to make the leap into comparisons with the city at the end of the African continent.
Nirvana by Makatile uses considerable wit to tell the story of two elderly residents of the retirement home of Nirvana. Two sparring gentlemen, Bra Levy and Piet Muller, are egged on by a woman nicknamed “Dischem” because she dishes out the pills the residents must take. The two men entertain the residents with their differing beliefs from either side of the political spectrum. It’s an amusing tale, which also shows how interconnected we all are.
Karen Jenning’s excellent and memorable The Incident is a fictionalised account of a young woman who is in a mental home, suffering the indignity of having her books taken away after an “incident”, trying to work through the darkness that moves through her during this time.
The Yolos by Megan Tennant, set in 2012, is the story of a young SA woman who moves to Hong Kong to teach English. She encounters a group of other South Africans she names the “Yolos”.
For a Fee by Nontobeko Mtshali explores the story of a young student, Sne, who finds that she is unable to register for university as last year’s fees have not been paid. She finds a way to earn the money, but the way she has to do so is heartbreaking.
David Mann’s entertaining, yet tension-filled This is Graffiti shines a detailed light on the risky world of graffiti artists. There is tension, too, in At the Edge of the World by Thango Ntwasa, opening on a young girl trapped in a ravine who must find her way to the top: the reason she is there is a telling indictment on certain types of men.
Love is at the heart of Werner Labuschagne’s Her Voice, described as an “apartheid love story”, where a young man’s love of jazz leads him to Sophiatown and its jazz clubs of the 1960s. Love is also a main ingredient of Srila Roy’s intriguing Six Nights and Seven Days, which tells the story of a young mother who has a fling on holiday away from her toddler.
Meanwhile, Shadow Chasers by Vuyokazi Ngemntu is a clever take on a detective tale in which one of the detectives transforms into a wolf to catch a killer. Crime is also at the centre of the chilling Superhero by Juliette Mnqeta. In this case, Q-Man, the older brother of Siya, is regarded as a superhero, a magnet to women and successful at his job, but turns out to have a dark side.
One Life presents an astonishing showcase of the breadth and depth of the short story as it is being practised today. They are sometimes loosely woven around the theme of YOLO, offering various entertaining, complex and thought-provoking stories.
- If you would like to try your hand at entering this year’s competition on the theme of POWER: LIGHT THE DARK you have until February 14. The Facebook page is at: https://www.facebook.com/ShortSharpStories
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.