“This apricot tree has multiple souls that fill me with wonder every morning and enchant me by afternoon. This tree has bitter-sweet memories, just like the fruit it bears.” If the apricot trees of Soweto could talk, what stories would they tell? This short story collection provides an imaginative answer. Imbued with a vivid sense of place, it captures the vibrancy of the township and surrounds. Told with satirical flair, life and death are intertwined in these tales where funerals and the ancestors feature strongly; where cemeteries are places to show off your new car and catch up on the latest gossip. Populating these stories is a politician mesmerised by his mistress’s manicure, zama-zamas running businesses underground, a sangoma with a remedy for theft, soccer fans ready to mete out a bloody justice, a private dancer in love and many other intriguing characters. Take your seat under the apricot tree and be enthralled by tales that are both entertaining and thought-provoking.
Оглавление
Niq Mhlongo. Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree
MY FATHER’S EYES
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT
MOVING LANDMARK
ROPED IN
AVALON
NAILED
TURBULENCE
WHISTLE-BLOWERS AND VUVUZELAS
PRIVATE DANCER SAUDADE
EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY
SOWETO, UNDER THE APRICOT TREE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Summary
About the Author
Other Publications by Niq Mhlongo, still in print
Other titles by Niq Mhlongo available in E-book format
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Niq Mhlongo
Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree
.....
When you confided in me, I felt the glowing ember of revenge that was burning in my breast. My veins stood out as if from the effects of a violent poison. I had thought that by refusing to tell me the truth you were deliberately defrauding me. But it was clear that talking about and reliving those memories pained you greatly. That is why you had kept them suppressed for as long as possible.
“Don’t bother, my beautiful daughter. Men are inferior creatures anyway. They are trash. That’s why God has deliberately not given them a womb. It would have been a huge responsibility for God to have given such a beautiful gift to inferior creatures like men. God came through a woman, remember that. Mary was fourteen years old when she gave birth to Jesus, our God. God is the spirit. You must keep on worshipping in spirit and truth. God regrets having made men because they are easily tempted by evil.”
