Browsing by Subject "creative writing"

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    Beyond Bounds
    (1998) Combrinck, Lisa; Haresnape, Geoffrey
    Like a slug, leaving a trail of mucus behind, I leave this long secretion of words. Stained pages, soiled underwear, spilled dreams. Life is not beautiful. It is the accumulation of scars, the imposition of cuts, the kniving of the womb, the stabbing of the soul, and the mind learning to lie and to live with the lies of its own making. Somewhere in this struggle, there appear glimpses of consummated desire, but they remain tiny, miniscule chinks oflight viewed from the bottom of the prison cell. Break open the bars. Walk in my womb. Bathe yourself in the presence of these words, the soapsuds of now. The lather of this page. But do not grow drunk. Do not water the future with these words. These words are too acidic, too acerbic, too alcoholic. They will burn and scar the future, rip and strip the body of its skin. Rather wipe out the residue that remains around this bowl. Douse the lava. Pull out the plug on these words. Let them seep down to the bottom of the drain. Let only echoes remain of the words whispering, gurgling into the underworld. Black-out everything. The dregs of my cup must not remain. No future must carve its route from these words. Every utterance must have its deathbed. And the dying must be able to choose whether their last words should be forgotten and die with them or whether they should be remembered and abused. I choose the former, euthanasia for the author, and plead with the reader not to be an informer, not to use these words for future seductions, mindless mutations of life. Now drive carefully. You have been forewarned. This is a cul-de-sac. Any attempts to press forward will be made in vain. Do not jump over the precipice of reality. You will find yourself back in the black hole of my womb. Frozen in time. Spiralling towards your end. In infinite cycles of erection and ejaculation. Pleasure which suddenly sours. The unending pain of permanent orgasm. Without pauses. Without breathing spaces. You do not have the stamina for this journey. Let me not whet your appetite for this kind of death. Do not lose your wits. Turn your back on this book. Go now. Before its brutal teeth make their presence felt. Run now. Every word is beyond repair. A song gone wrong. Every word is simply a swipe at your freedom, a fatal bite that sharpens your skin to the permanent perversions inherent in words. While I persist in playing pussy and pissing on the future. While I stroke your skin and suck the gaping hole in your soul. Escape now when you have the chance. Pull your naked self from under the covers of this book. Dress yourself in your own dreams, tmtouched by my hands. Forget the magnetic pull on your body parts, the throbbing longing in your loins. Walk away from this whoring of words, this story that is diseased in its spine. In the decalcifying of its bones. The petrifying of desire. The putrefying of privacy. This story that gets a kick out of selling itself, out of ripping its own knickers. This story that lingers interminably like stretch marks. Leave now. Wean yourself off these words. Weave your own song and go with the flow. Cleanse the world with your warm words. Let the future find its own form from your stream.
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    Looking for Thabang: my search for my lost brother
    (2022) Shale, Lehlohonolo; Evans, Martha
    This memoir/dissertation is about the relationship between two brothers growing up in apartheid South Africa during the eighties. Hlonkis wishes for his brother Thabang to live peacefully back home after years in exile. He reminisces about their earlier years in QwaQwa when his brother was playful and full of mischief like any other teenager. But when he comes back home his brother is a total stranger. He does not say much about his time in exile as a freedom fighter. Instead, Thabang hurries back to his birthplace in Thaba Nchu to lay the wreaths on their maternal side which includes a war veteran. Later he moves to Bloemfontein where a reception is held in his honour by the paternal side of the family. Meanwhile, no such event is held in Pimville, Soweto their home. The State charges Thabang criminally. Hlonkis believes the charges are trumped up and decides to go to court to prove it. His brother decides to represent himself at a case which attracts media attention and some protestors. The State convicts his brother and sentences him to time in jail. Whilst in prison, his health deteriorates. Prison is no comfort zone. But Thabang downplays it and hatches a plan to study further. His wish is to compensate for the gap left in his high school studies when he skipped the country to join the liberation army. His deteriorating condition gets in the way of applying for studies. Soon he is released from prison on medical parole. At their home in Pimville Thabang battles with a dreaded disease. The costs of medical attention and his acute state of illness make his recovery near impossible. Hlonkis can only get to internalise the lessons that his brother, on his sick bed, tries to impart. One of them is the spirit of generosity. But will Hlonkis ever find out the truth about his brother?
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    Nothing is certain but death and taxes
    (2019) Cain, Lyndall; Coovadia, Imraan
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    The worship of Love
    (2020) Mohamed, Ferial; Mohamed, Kharnita
    Rania, a young introverted woman, lives in a traditional Muslim family. It is a working class family, of Indian and Cape Malay heritage. Her parents married each other against her paternal grandmother's plans for her son, and because of their disapproval of Rania's mother, it caused a rift isolating both Rania and her mother from them. Rania feels stuck in an environment where she doesn't fit in and feels that she doesn't belong. Feeling like this, she escapes into a dream world of books and art to survive her overbearing mother, Shazia, who is both emotionally repressed and verbally abusive toward her. Her father, Ismail (Miley) Ahmed, fuels the drama with his obsessive control which Rania questions, yet obeys. Shazia, heartbroken from a previous love lost, pretends not to be interested in the silliness of love, and feigns disinterest in her husband's suspected extramarital affairs, yet does everything she can to hold onto him. Until he humiliates her beyond her capacity to forgive and she throws him out, but still secretly holds onto a hope that he will want to come back to her. Amara is Shazia's daughter from her previous husband, Rania's stepsister, and Shazia's favourite. Shazia has great plans for her, but she is a strong and free spirited young woman, and rebels against her doting mother by following her own bliss. She chooses happiness over security, even if it means defying her mother's wishes and breaking her mother's heart. Rania, obedient and lonely, yearns to meet someone she can connect to, someone who can save her from the world she believes her parents are keeping her trapped in, but she may be the one blocking herself. It is a coming of age story where three women struggle to find happiness amid difficult circumstances. The events which unfold, change their lives forever.