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Electric Fences: and other stories
Understated yet graphic and moving stories set in the South African townships of Durban, during and post apartheid. The female protagonists contend with forms of racism, male violence, and sheer poverty as they go about their lives and find dignity as mothers, daughters, students, and lovers. An unforgettable collection.
- GenresShort Stories
128 pages, Paperback
Published October 28, 2016
218 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 5, 2021
3.5/4 stars
...the body is beautiful, yes, but you have not talked enough about the cruel surprises. The things you cannot prepare for. Organs malfunctioning, missing, incomplete. Or the things that have to be removed or replaced, because they will destroy you.
But what you don't get, is how the body continues beautifully, even with the missing things. Continues until it can't.
– excerpt from Bodies Beautiful
Hlongwane's collection focuses on women, their experiences and eventual responses. Her prose is direct, interspersed with terms and phrases of a society that has known tremendous cruelty and darkness, meted out on its native people in favour of the colonizers.
But at the heart of each story is a woman, girl or group taking back their voice and power, speaking to the ills that permeate their society and stunt their expression, hobble their growth and success, and leave scars from acts of violence and violation.
The stories wind around privilege, unrest, brutalities, body autonomy, and silencing, all without drenching the readers in the atrocities that were committed from contact through Apartheid and after. The simmering tension could be felt in the observations and conversations.
Even though all the stories were good, Bodies Beautiful was impactful as it highlighted one woman's aim of ensuring that young people were given the spaces they needed to explore their bodies, sex, and everything that is usually obscured by societal values, taboos, and expectations.
...the body is beautiful, yes, but you have not talked enough about the cruel surprises. The things you cannot prepare for. Organs malfunctioning, missing, incomplete. Or the things that have to be removed or replaced, because they will destroy you.
But what you don't get, is how the body continues beautifully, even with the missing things. Continues until it can't.
– excerpt from Bodies Beautiful
Hlongwane's collection focuses on women, their experiences and eventual responses. Her prose is direct, interspersed with terms and phrases of a society that has known tremendous cruelty and darkness, meted out on its native people in favour of the colonizers.
But at the heart of each story is a woman, girl or group taking back their voice and power, speaking to the ills that permeate their society and stunt their expression, hobble their growth and success, and leave scars from acts of violence and violation.
The stories wind around privilege, unrest, brutalities, body autonomy, and silencing, all without drenching the readers in the atrocities that were committed from contact through Apartheid and after. The simmering tension could be felt in the observations and conversations.
Even though all the stories were good, Bodies Beautiful was impactful as it highlighted one woman's aim of ensuring that young people were given the spaces they needed to explore their bodies, sex, and everything that is usually obscured by societal values, taboos, and expectations.
June 12, 2018
In a land such as South Africa, is it possible to ever understand the complex consequences of injustice, cruelty and racial discrimination? How can one right the wrongs of the past and the present and in some way forge a new country, one that is governed and run with respect for the individual, equality, stability, prosperity and peace?
The fallout from colonialism and apartheid, along with the forces of greed and the resultant corruption of power, have all come together to create an uneasy no man's land - more realistically, a no woman’s land because of the heavy-handed patriarchy.
Electric Fences is a a highly recommended read for anyone who'd like to understand the psyche and workings of a damaged and bruised land, a land that is birthplace to exiles who remain and exiles who leave.
The fallout from colonialism and apartheid, along with the forces of greed and the resultant corruption of power, have all come together to create an uneasy no man's land - more realistically, a no woman’s land because of the heavy-handed patriarchy.
Electric Fences is a a highly recommended read for anyone who'd like to understand the psyche and workings of a damaged and bruised land, a land that is birthplace to exiles who remain and exiles who leave.
April 19, 2017
As someone who is familiar in only a broad perspective of apartheid, this is a superb collection of short stories that personalize the era of pre and post apartheid and especially the impact of black South African women.
It was enlightening, appalling, but presented to me the personal stories of the definition of Fences..
keeping the separation of the "whites" from their assumption that they were superior. Why am I not surprised as we we seem to be experiencing the same discriminations today. I imagine I am ignorant of the degradation suffered by blacks in post-apartheid as I was never taught prejudice.
I read this book in one setting but plan to read again once I figure out the degradation that was suffered and probably I need to try to understand or comprehend human nature. That said, I have not spent any time in the South and curious to see or hear similar stories. I look forward to passing this book around the book clubs I belong to have some serious dialog as the USA is experiencing the same issues or rather, still on-going and I know there will be some definite differences in opinion.
It was enlightening, appalling, but presented to me the personal stories of the definition of Fences..
keeping the separation of the "whites" from their assumption that they were superior. Why am I not surprised as we we seem to be experiencing the same discriminations today. I imagine I am ignorant of the degradation suffered by blacks in post-apartheid as I was never taught prejudice.
I read this book in one setting but plan to read again once I figure out the degradation that was suffered and probably I need to try to understand or comprehend human nature. That said, I have not spent any time in the South and curious to see or hear similar stories. I look forward to passing this book around the book clubs I belong to have some serious dialog as the USA is experiencing the same issues or rather, still on-going and I know there will be some definite differences in opinion.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews