Tizzita M Tefera: How Does the Mother Come from the Child

They tell me that I am a descendant of Arabs & Greeks,  They tell me look at your caramel brown skin, You are mixed. Then they come back and tell me that from my loins came humanity, They dig to find the oldest human skeletons in my land, They dig to find mitochondrial eve, They tell me 85% of humanity […]

Bertha Odawa: Voices

Click, Clack, Bang, Boom! The sounds, loud and explosive, The screams, the weapons, the silence, the death, Ching, Chang, cling, clang, The music drowned out as the joy fades, Bing, bang, boom, The stories fading out as the narrative changes, Shh, Ahh, Ohh, Huddling, survival, the native camps, now homes, Mama, Baba, Baby, The pain of loss, the disintegration of […]

koth biro. by Robert Onono

…♪♫… rain is coming… ♫♪ Grievance is when the spirit is upset, with an earnest thirst for restitution. Turbulence that runs deep, disturbing those otherwise still waters. Small fractures fractal out. Hurt is an understatement. It is skin, stretched across the extent of our aliveness, within which the percussion of existence reverberates. Quiet vernaculars of feeling. Thresholds of sensitivity, where […]

barthlomeo manzrui: lower gods

there’s the saxophone:  & the music? to be blue? and the question, em? we didn’t like his music. career? his very existence? the core of his being? his lost relationship with us? envied it, the glory? all of it? plays ask for a pause. stage right. dim lights. enter we. we enter. lower. we continue with the tirade? how can […]

Clifton Gachagua: There is No Return

“Return was a myth departure coined as inceptive.”  A. Zawacki   There’s no return.  Memory. Reflection. Then? Alexis Teyie recently reminded me of Bly & Lorca. Vallejo. The language of translation. The rass in the cemeteries. But it is Arundhati Roy that I most remember for the kindness of Alex and family: The brothers. & Rosie Olang’. And every act […]

SHIFT Collective: Unstoppable

The last few years have seen seismic shifts in discussions about the restitution of cultural heritage. We are witnessing the previously unthinkable situation, where certain objects held in museums in the North might be returned to the communities in the South. Nevertheless, very few objects have actually physically moved. We asked ourselves if this inertia is not only political. Perhaps […]

Ray Mwihaki: And to You, Many Returns

When you hear whispers in this part of town, it’s either hot gossip that you must partake in with an arched back, hands cupped around your ears, widening eyes and standing akimbo. Rarely do they come from the abyss yet there were whispers coming from the tree no one should touch. It had not been much of a tree for […]