What do you think?
Rate this book
Yellow Means Stay: An Anthology of Love Stories from Africa
★ AFRITONDO PRIZE 2020 Yellow Means Stay is a collection of enthralling, sad, humourous, and heart-touching love stories from across Africa and the black diaspora. It features new and award-winning writers from across the African continent and beyond. The stories are a dynamic blend of the poetic and narrative, the spousal and familial, the suggestive and explicit, the dramatic and measured, the straight and queer, the sad and humourous, the past and future, life and afterlife. Through its pages, readers enter the world of African literature, love, and romance.
Extract
The buttocks are like a married couple. Although there is constant friction between them, they will still love and live together . African proverb
ONLY STARS KNOW THE MEANING OF SPACE by Rémy Ngamije
He is a boy, a man, and a poet. I’m forced to take turns being with each one.
I don’t tolerate the boy.
I endure the man.
But I love the poet.
He’s the one who tells me the arms of the Milky Way spiral outwards from us. ‘Baby,’ he says, holding my face in his hands, ‘the planets tilt their axes towards us.’ He kisses me, a meeting of lips, a communion of souls. When he comes home to me, to our corner of the galaxy, he says time slows down when he’s with me. ‘Like when you read a good book, and the weather outside your window changes without you even realising it.’
The poet says when we’re apart, he struggles to find his
Lost—
(Like the empty space between line breaks in a poem)
—Eager to continue the sentence that is us.
He writes things like that to me. It’s common to find an envelope stuffed with his compositions on my pillow when I go to bed, hidden amongst my shoes in the early morning before I go to work, or folded into my handbag when I’m shopping. I unfold them and read the neat handwriting, squeeze myself between the stanzas, and revel in my role as muse and girlfriend.
I’ve been loved by men before. None of them have been artists. To be loved by someone who creates, who does, who tries to communicate his innermost being for a living is akin to being present during the First Seven Days. Can you imagine bearing witness to the awesome powers and the creation of life? It’s intoxicating. When the poet writes to me, I see his past, his present, and his hopeful future come to a point on his pen.
The poet says, ‘Baby, you’re my true North.’
He is South.
Our love spreads out from the furthest East to the westernmost side of West. He says our children will be named after the compass directions of our future travels. ‘Pick a place,’ he says, ‘and we’ll go there.’
I say I want to go to Ghana, and the poet says Ghana is mere geography. ‘We are gods. Accra-cadabra! We shall see Ghana.’ His self-assuredness books the flights. His words check-in the baggage of our Thailand (because it’s affordable), Colombia (for his beloved Gabo and whatever he believes is awaiting him in Barranquilla), Senegal (‘To track down the last of the griots,’ he says), New Orleans (for the Cajun cuisine and the Creole cool), Montego Bay (‘So you can flaunt that island gyal body, baby!’ His Jamaican accent isn’t on point, but I appreciate the sentiment). ‘All the lines of longitude and latitude shall know of our love,’ he says.
Extract
The buttocks are like a married couple. Although there is constant friction between them, they will still love and live together . African proverb
ONLY STARS KNOW THE MEANING OF SPACE by Rémy Ngamije
He is a boy, a man, and a poet. I’m forced to take turns being with each one.
I don’t tolerate the boy.
I endure the man.
But I love the poet.
He’s the one who tells me the arms of the Milky Way spiral outwards from us. ‘Baby,’ he says, holding my face in his hands, ‘the planets tilt their axes towards us.’ He kisses me, a meeting of lips, a communion of souls. When he comes home to me, to our corner of the galaxy, he says time slows down when he’s with me. ‘Like when you read a good book, and the weather outside your window changes without you even realising it.’
The poet says when we’re apart, he struggles to find his
Lost—
(Like the empty space between line breaks in a poem)
—Eager to continue the sentence that is us.
He writes things like that to me. It’s common to find an envelope stuffed with his compositions on my pillow when I go to bed, hidden amongst my shoes in the early morning before I go to work, or folded into my handbag when I’m shopping. I unfold them and read the neat handwriting, squeeze myself between the stanzas, and revel in my role as muse and girlfriend.
I’ve been loved by men before. None of them have been artists. To be loved by someone who creates, who does, who tries to communicate his innermost being for a living is akin to being present during the First Seven Days. Can you imagine bearing witness to the awesome powers and the creation of life? It’s intoxicating. When the poet writes to me, I see his past, his present, and his hopeful future come to a point on his pen.
The poet says, ‘Baby, you’re my true North.’
He is South.
Our love spreads out from the furthest East to the westernmost side of West. He says our children will be named after the compass directions of our future travels. ‘Pick a place,’ he says, ‘and we’ll go there.’
I say I want to go to Ghana, and the poet says Ghana is mere geography. ‘We are gods. Accra-cadabra! We shall see Ghana.’ His self-assuredness books the flights. His words check-in the baggage of our Thailand (because it’s affordable), Colombia (for his beloved Gabo and whatever he believes is awaiting him in Barranquilla), Senegal (‘To track down the last of the griots,’ he says), New Orleans (for the Cajun cuisine and the Creole cool), Montego Bay (‘So you can flaunt that island gyal body, baby!’ His Jamaican accent isn’t on point, but I appreciate the sentiment). ‘All the lines of longitude and latitude shall know of our love,’ he says.
- GenresShort Stories
344 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2020
11 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 2, 2021
A few days ago we returned home from burying our child, my husband's eldest daughter, and were met with requests for soccer boots and shin guards, cricket bats and tote bags for swimming and we realised that the world doesn't stop moving just because we don't want to. This collection, Yellow Means Stay, @afritondo is about that. About loves gone wrong, loves gone awry, loves which do not fit within the neat lines of heteronormative narratives, unrequited loves and loves taking shapes in spiritual realms.
21 short and piercingly sharp stories told in and around love. Yellow took a significant meaning to me this week. The colour of creativity, confidence, joy, optimism, growth, and having the strength to take the next steps on our journey. A journey where we will forever carry the spirit of our Beloved and see her everywhere in everything. A journey where our ground has tilted but in time, we will find our balance again. A different balance but a balance nonetheless.
May your Friday be yellow-filled. If you need an ear to listen, please contact @thesadag. Remember that your life matters. "You is kind. You is important. You is beautiful", The Help, Kathryn Stockett.
21 short and piercingly sharp stories told in and around love. Yellow took a significant meaning to me this week. The colour of creativity, confidence, joy, optimism, growth, and having the strength to take the next steps on our journey. A journey where we will forever carry the spirit of our Beloved and see her everywhere in everything. A journey where our ground has tilted but in time, we will find our balance again. A different balance but a balance nonetheless.
May your Friday be yellow-filled. If you need an ear to listen, please contact @thesadag. Remember that your life matters. "You is kind. You is important. You is beautiful", The Help, Kathryn Stockett.
October 11, 2023
Some stories were good; some were sleepers; all except one were focused on death, destruction of relationships, limited self-awareness, and hiding.
Change the characters’ names and parts of the settings, and these stories could be from any part of the world. Notice the subtitle and think.
Also, if and only if any of the stories would be analyzed in an educational setting, that would only be appropriate for the college level with huge trigger warnings. There are a few authors in the collection who employed some cleverly creative writing techniques. However, that was not redemptive enough to warrant a higher score from me.
Change the characters’ names and parts of the settings, and these stories could be from any part of the world. Notice the subtitle and think.
Also, if and only if any of the stories would be analyzed in an educational setting, that would only be appropriate for the college level with huge trigger warnings. There are a few authors in the collection who employed some cleverly creative writing techniques. However, that was not redemptive enough to warrant a higher score from me.
March 27, 2021
A powerful, intimate and highly moving read. One of my Top 5 books of the year
November 7, 2022
It is is a beautiful collection of enthralling, sad, humorous, and heart-touching love stories from across Africa and the Black diaspora.The stories are a dynamic blend of the poetic and narrative, the spousal and familial, the suggestive and explicit, the dramatic and measured, the straight and queer, the sad and humorous, the past and future, life and afterlife. Through its pages, readers enter the world of African literature, love, and romance.
January 18, 2024
This book is so twisted in an unexpected manner. To be African and know love as an African, is to know and experience trauma. I expected love in its purest of acceptance and beauty without the expectation of love with its trauma.
Beautifully written stories from African authors that show different experiences of love.
We need to write happier love stories 😭.
Beautifully written stories from African authors that show different experiences of love.
We need to write happier love stories 😭.
September 7, 2021
Few things as beautiful as black love! Loved every single story. Captured African love from so many different angles. Enthralled!
October 29, 2021
I feel like this collection is overrated.....it's either that or my expectations were way too high. The short stories were okay but not great. Some were a snore fest....others were interesting.
December 14, 2021
I’m oscillating between a 3.5 and a 4 stars
Currently reading
April 23, 2022I just started. 1st chapter was amazing.
I'm not sure what's happening on the 2nd chapter. And this was edited by 3 people? I'm in shock
I'm not sure what's happening on the 2nd chapter. And this was edited by 3 people? I'm in shock
August 13, 2023
Anything involving Munachim Amah beware and stay clear - phony through and though. A liar and racist against white people…
October 19, 2023
I did like maybe 3 of the stories, but most were sad. Not at all what I was expecting. Also, a subtle thread of misogynoir throughout the book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews