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the_lia_library's review
hopeful
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
4.0
If we made this world with our bare hands instead of by the accidental destiny of birth, our
love, this love between us women, would be sanctified in public spaces, temples, in the market, on the dirt roads we were raised on....
I think this is one of my favorite reads this year and I am glad I came across it. As with most short story collections, some stories hit and some don't. The second to last story, I believe is "my father doesn't know my name" has Incest relationship and honestly made me feel very uncomfortable reading it. I don't think it should have been included. Overall give the collection a go.
I think this is one of my favorite reads this year and I am glad I came across it. As with most short story collections, some stories hit and some don't. The second to last story, I believe is "my father doesn't know my name" has Incest relationship and honestly made me feel very uncomfortable reading it. I don't think it should have been included. Overall give the collection a go.
filaughn's review
I am classifying this as "read" but skipped one of the stories based on other reviews here - so it would be unfair to give an overall rating. I thought the quality across stories varied a lot, but generally liked these. A few fell flat, but I expect that with this kind of thing. I could tell that these stories came from a lot of very different authors with different styles. There were a few where I either now plan to read a full book of their work or wish a solo non-anthology book existed for me to read!
mybookworldtour's review
3.0
'Queer Africa' is an anthology of short stories highlighting different aspects of being LGBTIQ+ in the African continent and its diasporas, including in countries where same-sex love is illegal.
All stories except one worked for me. However, the one I disliked, I also found deeply disturbing and problematic. In this tale, the incestuous sexual relationship between a father and a son is described in graphic terms and portrayed as same-sex love. I find it extremely harmful to link incest and child abuse (yes, even if the son is an adult, it is still abuse!) to a "queer" definition. Doing so is detrimental to the lgbtiq+ movement.
All stories except one worked for me. However, the one I disliked, I also found deeply disturbing and problematic. In this tale, the incestuous sexual relationship between a father and a son is described in graphic terms and portrayed as same-sex love. I find it extremely harmful to link incest and child abuse (yes, even if the son is an adult, it is still abuse!) to a "queer" definition. Doing so is detrimental to the lgbtiq+ movement.
davidareyzaga's review
5.0
Queer Africa es una colección importante de historias sobre la condición humana y la vulnerabilidad de la comunidad queer. Si bien es un tanto predecible que muchas historias aquí sean tristes (porque esa es la realidad), también hay historias de recuperación agentiva. Somos dueños de nuestras historias y aunque otros a veces quieran robarlas, nuestras voces se escuchan.
En otro plano, el texto me acercó a un conjunto de tradiciones que suelen ignorarse en México. No toda la literatura lgbt debe venir de nuestro país o de Estados Unidos. Y dentro de esta colección, también se aprecia que no haya un enfoque excesivo en la porción masculina de la comunidad. Muchas historias aquí son sobre mujeres y también hay dos sobre la comunidad transgénero. Mi única crítica sería que muchas de las historias son de Sudáfrica y sería bueno que hubiera de más países para que el título de la antología sea adecuado, porque ahorita diría que es Mostly Queer South Africa.
En otro plano, el texto me acercó a un conjunto de tradiciones que suelen ignorarse en México. No toda la literatura lgbt debe venir de nuestro país o de Estados Unidos. Y dentro de esta colección, también se aprecia que no haya un enfoque excesivo en la porción masculina de la comunidad. Muchas historias aquí son sobre mujeres y también hay dos sobre la comunidad transgénero. Mi única crítica sería que muchas de las historias son de Sudáfrica y sería bueno que hubiera de más países para que el título de la antología sea adecuado, porque ahorita diría que es Mostly Queer South Africa.
gerhard's review
4.0
With homosexuality outlawed in 34 out of 55 African countries, an anthology such as this one plays an incredibly important role in giving a voice to the voiceless. What I particularly liked about the diverse stories collected here is that they are not strident, grandstanding, or interested in making sweeping political statements. Many are quite oblique, and focus on the quotidian details that make up lived gay experience in Africa. The people represented here live and breathe, love and act in anger and out of fear. They dream and hope, and also often just give up. Any gay person in Africa reading this will recognise a facet of their own lives here. This makes the book a powerful revolutionary statement in and of itself.
martha_is_reading's review
3.0
Originally two separate volumes, [b:Queer Africa|17936064|Queer Africa|Karen Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1369029353s/17936064.jpg|25145501] and [b:Queer Africa 2|35701952|Queer Africa 2|Karen Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1500416215s/35701952.jpg|57195443], this book contains 22 stories celebrating queer writers from across the continent, including Botswana, Uganda and South Africa.
In his introduction, [a:Chike Frankie Edozien|15254318|Chike Frankie Edozien|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] writes:
As always, there's a variety of stories within here, so I've rated them individually and the overall rating is an average:
Nine Pieces of Desire - 3 stars
Pampers - 4 stars
Sethunya Likes Girls Best - 4 stars
Pelican Driver - 3.5 stars
Jambula Tree - 4 stars
Going Home - 4 stars
Staying Afloat - 3 stars
Maimuna Doesn't Know - 4 stars
Iyawo - 4 stars
Chief of the Home - 4 stars
Leaving Civvy Street - 3 stars
Pyrrhic Victory - 3 stars
Pub 360 - 3.5 stars
Rock - 3 stars
This Tomorrow Was Christmas - 2.5 stars
The Day He Came - 2 stars
Chapter Thirteen - 3 stars
Awure Iferan - 3 stars
The Bath - 4 stars
My Dad Forgot My Name? - COULD NOT RATE...see below!
Chebor's Light - 2 stars
All Covered Up - 4.5 stars
I was taken aback at the inclusion of Victor Lewis's My Dad Forgot My Name? in this collection. In a nutshell, a young man is visiting a 'spa' where men can go to have sex with other men. He bumps into his father and the story begins with the two facing each other, frozen in shock. We cut back to previous years to learn more about the relationship between the two men (not especially close, and both are clearly closeted). I expected it to be a story about a pivotal moment between father and son, leading to a more honest and open relationship, releasing some of the pain that both of them have experienced trying to hide their true selves. I thought it would be a commentary on the generational difference, where the father's generation were even more expected to hide themselves, whereas there is a bit more openness for the son's generation (though I appreciate the African context puts a different layer on that).
NOPE.
What actually happens is father and son have graphic sex. With each other. Full on literal incest.
I tried researching this collection online and there were very few reviews, none of which mentioned this story. The original story was, I believe, in Queer Africa 2, and the one article I could find about that described how some of the stories, including this one, were included to challenge readers' moral preconceptions - is negative moral perception of incest something that needs to be challenged?!
What disturbed me the most about this was that this story was in a collection about the LGBTQ+ community. Having discussed it with a friend, she articulated it perfectly - its inclusion is a tacit approval, as if incest is a valid sexuality alongside the rest of the community. Worse still, a prevalent assumption by many homophobes is that queerness is akin to paedophilia and children must be protected from gay people. While this story was about two consenting adults (although the unequal power dynamic between father and son would challenge that), it's still close enough to perpetuate that abhorrent stereotype, so I was shocked that the editors would choose to include it when all of the other stories seemed to be seeking to normalise and celebrate queerness.
In the end I couldn't rate that story and excluded it from the average I took of the ratings. On the one hand, it was actually well-written and clearly provoked an extreme reaction in me; on the flip side - everything I've said above! What it did mean is that I had no qualms about rounding the average down to a 3 rather than up to a 4. I would have felt more generous towards it and wanted to recognise the importance of such a collection, but Lewis's story made me feel very uncomfortable and I don't know if I would recommend this collection to others.
In his introduction, [a:Chike Frankie Edozien|15254318|Chike Frankie Edozien|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] writes:
"African books - by Africans, for Africans - have broken through the walls of major markets in international publishing, reclaiming our narratives for generations to come...But while this was happening, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Africans found themselves under sustained, ferocious and often brutal attacks y the state...This sparkling collection...means people all over the world will now have access to writing from across the continent that shows us as we really are, multidimensional and full of complexity."
As always, there's a variety of stories within here, so I've rated them individually and the overall rating is an average:
Nine Pieces of Desire - 3 stars
Pampers - 4 stars
Sethunya Likes Girls Best - 4 stars
Pelican Driver - 3.5 stars
Jambula Tree - 4 stars
Going Home - 4 stars
Staying Afloat - 3 stars
Maimuna Doesn't Know - 4 stars
Iyawo - 4 stars
Chief of the Home - 4 stars
Leaving Civvy Street - 3 stars
Pyrrhic Victory - 3 stars
Pub 360 - 3.5 stars
Rock - 3 stars
This Tomorrow Was Christmas - 2.5 stars
The Day He Came - 2 stars
Chapter Thirteen - 3 stars
Awure Iferan - 3 stars
The Bath - 4 stars
My Dad Forgot My Name? - COULD NOT RATE...see below!
Chebor's Light - 2 stars
All Covered Up - 4.5 stars
NOPE.
What actually happens is father and son have graphic sex. With each other. Full on literal incest.
I tried researching this collection online and there were very few reviews, none of which mentioned this story. The original story was, I believe, in Queer Africa 2, and the one article I could find about that described how some of the stories, including this one, were included to challenge readers' moral preconceptions - is negative moral perception of incest something that needs to be challenged?!
What disturbed me the most about this was that this story was in a collection about the LGBTQ+ community. Having discussed it with a friend, she articulated it perfectly - its inclusion is a tacit approval, as if incest is a valid sexuality alongside the rest of the community. Worse still, a prevalent assumption by many homophobes is that queerness is akin to paedophilia and children must be protected from gay people. While this story was about two consenting adults (although the unequal power dynamic between father and son would challenge that), it's still close enough to perpetuate that abhorrent stereotype, so I was shocked that the editors would choose to include it when all of the other stories seemed to be seeking to normalise and celebrate queerness.
In the end I couldn't rate that story and excluded it from the average I took of the ratings. On the one hand, it was actually well-written and clearly provoked an extreme reaction in me; on the flip side - everything I've said above! What it did mean is that I had no qualms about rounding the average down to a 3 rather than up to a 4. I would have felt more generous towards it and wanted to recognise the importance of such a collection, but Lewis's story made me feel very uncomfortable and I don't know if I would recommend this collection to others.
wai's review
4.0
I was torn on my rating for this, but settled on 4/5 because 95% of this anthology is great and interesting. Each story has its distinct feel and it's really refreshing to read non-western queer stories. However the second to last story, "My Dad Forgot My Name?" by Victor Lewis, was very uncomfortable as it depicted an incestuous relationship between a son and his father. I feel like that story should come with a warning as it could be quite triggering for some people.