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Who Will Bury You?

And Other Stories

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A Boston Globe Best Book of 2024
Brittle Paper 100 Notable African Books of 2024

Intimate stories about Zimbabweans in moments of transition that force them to decide who they really are and choose the people they call their own.

Set in Toronto and Zimbabwe, the twelve elegant stories in Who Will Bury You? touch on themes of loss, identity, and inequality as they follow the lives of Zimbabweans who often feel like they are on the outside looking in. A mother and daughter navigate new relationship dynamics when the daughter comes out as a lesbian. Two sisters wonder what will hold them together after their grandmother's death. A daughter tries to tell her father she loves him as she prepares to leave home for the first time. A journalist takes her grieving mother on a trip to report on girls who are allegedly being abducted by mermaids. A girl born to be the river god's wife becomes a hero when chaos breaks out in the mighty Zambezi. A group of mothers discover just how far they are willing to go to protect their children during wartime.

Ephemeral yet beautifully satisfying, the stories in Chido Muchemwa's debut collection ask what makes people leave home, what makes them come back, and what keeps them there.

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    • Kirkus

      Starred review from November 1, 2024
      In her debut collection, Muchemwa--a Zimbabwean writer living in Toronto--deftly chronicles both family tensions and national struggles. The first three stories in this empathically rendered collection provide a useful summary of Muchemwa's skill at capturing emotional complexity and avoiding cliches. "Who Will Bury You?," "This Will Break My Mother's Heart," and "If It Wasn't for the Nights" play out like a chamber drama: A young Zimbabwean woman moves to Canada, where she falls in love with another woman; back home, her devoutly Christian mother wrestles with her own feelings. In three stories, Muchemwa takes readers inside the heads of mother, daughter, and the daughter's fiancee in turn, taking each of their struggles seriously and arriving at a moving conclusion. These three pieces start the collection on a high note, and Muchemwa's attention to detail throughout the book pays welcome dividends, even down to small things like characters' taste in books. A character in one story describes reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie'sAmericanah, while two others bond over their shared love for Anne McCaffrey's science fiction novels. Muchemwa skillfully deploys references to books and music where you least expect it, as when the narrator of "Finding Mermaids" goes looking for a woman who is said to be "evidence of the power of mermaids." The person she finds is far more idiosyncratic: "She wore a headband made from goatskin and a cowhide pinned around her shoulder, but under the hide was a black System of a Down T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off." Elsewhere, in stories like "Kariba Heights" and "The Last of the Boys," Muchemwa steps back in history, exploring Zimbabwe's colonial past and struggle for independence. The total effect of this notable collection is of an author demonstrating her range and skill. An impressive and expansive collection.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Languages

  • English

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