Threads and Faces: Stories on Identity and Belonging
Edited by Goretti Kyomuhendo
Published by African Writers Trust
“Gira So, Gira Izina, Gira umigisha, Gira iyo uva, Gira n’iyo uja”
“May you have a father, a name, good fortune, an origin, and a bright future”
A Burundian greeting
Threads and Faces, an anthology of short stories and poetry is a quick, easy, no fuss read. The kind of book you can take in in one sitting, gently gliding through the different worlds the writers bring you into. Its key strength and perhaps the greatest beauty, is the showcasing of different facets of East African communities. This is most visible in the sayings/proverbs, greetings, and words of wisdom shared, words that resonate with those I carry from my upbringing. My favorite is the greeting, more blessing, from Burundi “Gira So, Gira Izina, Gira umigisha, Gira iyo uva, Gira n’iyo uja” translated as “May you have a father, a name, good fortune, an origin, and a bright future” echoing the human desire for belonging and purpose.
The stories and poems are written largely in autobiographical form or as memoirs, with themes centered on identity and belonging and most of the writers offer snippets of their childhoods as focal points for the issues they discuss. Recurring too is the idea of change; how we are changed and who we become given this change in and us. For the different writers the changes in them and to their way of life are triggered by different occurrences, some external and many internal. Events and moments that remain seared to the fabric of their souls guiding, imposing, compelling, driving, relentless, unforgiving, always present. The catalysts might vary, death of a parent or parents, displacement, relocation, navigating teenage pressures and boarding school, facing off to bullies, and more, but the end seems similar. A questioning of who they have become, a confronting of what was endured, and a search for what they could be or should be.
Pain remains present regardless of who you read or the world the writers bring you into. The pain of losing a parent, family, or home, the pain of navigating life particularly those irksome teenage years more so as a person with a disability, the pain of being caught between worlds be it as one returning to a home country that’s home in name and not experience confronted with a heritage they are unfamiliar with or of confronting one’s sexuality and the conceptions of gender roles, the pain of studying under the threat of a brutal rebel group, and the pain of watching dreams reached for float away. Navigating this pain, their pain, one can’t help but agree with Fatma in A Cup of Karkade,
I know what it’s like to look for love,
To wish something into existence, but my dear,
The earth will survive a thousand wars
Before it learns to conceal you from pain
But the anthology is not just about the varied forms of pain and struggle. There’s signs of the writers being Inyemezamihigo: people who achieve their dreams no matter what. You wish it for them all as they go in search of given aspects of life, peace, belonging, healing, respect, understanding and everything else that lends to having a meaningful life despite the pains experienced.
Perhaps the most poignant of all the stories is Nights in April: A Memoir on Fatherhood and Inherited Trauma by Lionel Ntasano. “Don’t tell anymore fairytales when the child has gone to sleep” he cautions at the start of the story. In a dream-like state the writer wades through memories of his father and the implications of the latter’s as yet to be resolved tragic death three years prior. His father appears to him in what is best described as a night terror begging for help. As is common in places where the rule of law is not a given and were violence is used in place of civility, the snippets offered of his father going missing and later confirmed dead are not startling. This is straight out of the playbook for these governments. The writer’s anguish is palpable. Nights in April offers a glimpse into the trauma carried by the families of those that get caught up in this. Where does one begin to unravel the truth behind incidents such as these? Perhaps of greater tragedy is the ease with which life continues on after such tragic loss. We carry on still but we never remain the same.
Threads and Faces: Stories on belonging and identity is a wonderful read. We are never without pain and experiences that would distort our hopes, of this the anthology is clear, yet despite this we can find and know ourselves, our places of belonging, and hopefully a purpose for our existence.
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