Danged Black Thing

<p><em>Danged Black Thing</em> is an extraordinary collection of stories about love and migration gender and class patriarchy and womanhood from a remarkable and original voice. Traversing the West and Africa they celebrate the author's hybridity with breathtaking sensuousness and lyricism.</p><p><br></p><p>Simbiyu wins a scholarship to study in Australia but cannot leave behind a world of walking barefoot the orange sun and his longing for a once pillow-soft mother. In his past darkness rose from the river and something nameless and mystical continues to envelop his life. In A Taste of Unguja sweet taarab music full of want seeps into a mother's life on the streets of Melbourne as she evokes the powers of her ancestors to seek vengeance on her cursed ex. In the cyberfunk of Unlimited Data Natukunda a village woman gives her all for her family in Old Kampala. Other stories explore what happens when the water runs dry-and who pays capture the devastating effects on women and children of societies in which men hold all the power and themes of being belonging and otherness.</p><p><br></p><p>Speculative realistic and even mythological but always imbued with truth empathy and Blackness <em>Danged Black Thing</em> is a literary knockout.</p>