leynes > Books: african-writers‎ (110)

call a myth what it is:
the surviving whispers of history

I have been in flight since I left the womb, and probably before, given the circumstances I was born into and the effect of these circumstances on my prenatal environment.

The source of the evil was political and so the only cure must be a political one.

Beim Rassismus geht es nie nur um Vorurteile, sondern immer auch um eine Rechtfertigung für die asymmetrische Ausbeutung von Arbeitskraft.
— Sebastian Conrad, Professor für Neuere Geschichte an der FU Berlin

"I'm not ready to be alone. And you say: 'You won't be. Just hold the light—help and hope are on the way.'"

“Odenigbo climbed up to the podium waving his Biafran flag: swaths of red, black and green and, at the center, a luminous half of a yellow sun.”

“Red was the blood of the siblings massacred in the North, black was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have, and, finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious future.”

Ugwu writes his dedication last: For Master, my good man.

In Mondscheinnächten stand er da und blickte über die Felder, die jetzt wie eine grüne Meeresfläche wirkten, auf der die weißen Maisspitzen wie Gischt wogten; oder am Mittag blickte er über die ausgedehnten Flächen aus braun aufgeworfenen Erdschollen, warm durchdrungen vom Sonnenlicht; oder bei Sonnenuntergang, wenn das Buschland meilenweit goldenrot aufflammte. Weite – das war es, was er brauchte. Um das zu finden, hatte er England verlassen.

From one silence to another
on the tenuous thread of departures
in the clamor of the r

From one silence to another
on the tenuous thread of departures
in the clamor of the returns
opening our poem holders
all in nuance of sadness
of our hope not yet born
of the one that smolders in every corner
to the butterfly that shines dancing
its breath of frail flower music of the world

D'un silence à l'autre
sur le fil ténu des départs
dans la clameur des retours
ouvrant nos porte-poèmes
toute en nuance de tristesse
de notre espoir pas encore né
de celui qui couve dans tous les coins
jusqu'au papillon qui rayonne dansant
sa respiration de fleur frêle musique du monde

There is the forgotten silence
on the curling of water
that lets the river breathe

listen to the language of its banks
and the night that tells all the nights

the story of two lost children's eyes
found on the tops of the mangroves
far, far away where the sea and the river
speak the language of fresh water

Il y a le silence oublié
sur les friselis d'eau
qui laisse le fleuve respirer

écouter le langage de ses berges
et la nuit qui conte à toutes les nuits

l'histoire des deux yeux d'enfant perdus
retrouvés sur les cimes des palétuviers
loin très loin là où la mer et le fleuve
se parlent la langue de l'eau douce

In the meantime a certain giddiness had come over my aunts as if the time spent remembering the girls and women they once had been had invigorated the spirits. They'd lifted the past from their own shoulders and handed it to me. I didn't see it as a burden at all. Rather a treasure trove of memories, of lives lived and lessons learned, of terrors faced and pleasures tasted.

"You won’t find your dead in the graves or the bones or the latrine. That’s not where they’re waiting for you. They’re inside you. They only survive in you, and you only survive through them."