Mosaic Literary Magazine

o s a ic i c M ISSUE TWENTY FOUR mosaicmagazine.org

RELEVANT LITERATURE

SIX DOLLARS

TA-NEHISI COATES

JUNOT DIAZ A NEW ‘TOON GORETTI KYOMUHENDO

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Contents Issue #24 The New Black Memoir An Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates ..................................... 8

by Abdul Ali Excerpt The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coayes ........................ 14 A New ‘Toon Robert Truillo on graphic artist Dawud Anyabwile .............. 18 Every Woman An Interview with Goretti Kyomuhendo ............................. 26

by Beatrice Lamwaka Excerpt Waiting: A Novel of Uganda at War

by Goretti Kyomuhendo .................................................... 33 Junot’s Oscar An Interview with Junot Diaz by Alison Isaac ..................... 36

Cover illustration: Robert Truillo

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Editor & Publisher Ron Kavanaugh ron@mosaicmagazine.org | Twitter: @mosaicbooks Copy Editor Tawny Pruitt

Mosaic Literary Magazine (ISSN 1531-0388) is published four times per year by the Literary Freedom Project. Content copyright Š 2009.

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Mosaic is made possible with public funds from the Bronx Council on the Arts through The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Greater New York Arts Development Fund Regrants Program and The New York State Council Arts Decentralization Program. Program support was provided by Poets & Writers.

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 MAKE CHECK OR MONEY ORDER PAYABLE TO Literary Freedom Project 314 W 231 St. #470 Bronx, NY 10463

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Contributors

Abdul Ali is a freelance arts and culture writer living in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in TheRoot.com, Black Issues Book Review, and The Washington Post.

An accomplished writer, Alison Isaac has contributed to numerous publications across North America and the UK, including Pound, Urbanology, Jamrock and Sheeko magazines. Her thoughtful and poetic reviews on an eclectic mix of artists ranging from Zaki Ibrahim to DJ A-Trak have appeared most recently on Okayplayer.com. Alison has earned a degree in Communications and Spanish from York University as well as a certificate in Magazine Publishing from Ryerson University.

Beatrice Lamwaka is finalist for the PEN/Studzinski Literary Award 2009, and a fellow for, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation/African Institute of South Africa, Young African Scholars program 2009.

She has published various short stories in different anthologies. She is currently working on her first novel, Butterfly Dreams.

Robert Trujillo is a Bay Area bread muralist, illustrator, and arts educator. Since his arrival in Brooklyn he has created an online forum of illustrators and writers of color called Come Bien Books. In addition, he paints, tours, teaches, and exhibits with his crew; the Trust Your Struggle Collective.

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THENeWBLA Interview with TA-NEHISI COATES by Abdul Ali

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AcKMEMOiR When Ta-Nehisi Coates sat down to write The Beautiful Struggle, he broke new ground for young memoirists whose work challenge what a black story can be in this contemporary moment where a black male can conceivably top the New York Times bestselling list and be President of the United States at the same time.

Photo credit: Mya Spalter

Perhaps not since Claude Brown’s Manchild in the Promised Land have we seen such an unflinching

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look at urban life and the rites of passage of black youth navigating issues of identity, manhood, and surviving the episodic drama of the hood. What makes Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoir compelling and different is its father-son dynamic, and the fact that Coates represents a rarely seen black boy—not the loud, pugnacious type. Rather, a sensitive kind who seems ill-suited for the hood, surviving it by the cleats of his pants. While managing to stay lighthearted and painting a rather colorful cast, Coates makes his native Baltimore both familiar and something to be observed at arm’s length.

In recent memory, only a handful of memoirs about the black male experience have gained critical recognition. To the chagrin of many, their stories typically stay within the realm of one-dimensional, survival stories—surviving abuse and learning the transcendent power of forgiveness (think Antwone Fisher’s Finding Fish), or navigating the absentee father pandemic and its impact on relationships (think Michael Datcher’s Raising Fences).

The Beautiful Struggle remains true by not being preachy or overly indulgent as a confessional story.

It is honest, reflective, never self-aggrandizing, forcing us to care about all of the characters that people Coates’ world which begins in West Baltimore and goes all the way to “the Mecca.” Two narratives run side by side, like two trains running. There is the young Ta-Nehisi who morphs dramatically into an

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awkward, goofy kid running away from brutes, to a pensive wordsmith who through his father’s example is able to make connections from histories, books, and words using them as a tool for change.

There is something heartening and rare in learning about Paul Coates, the guy who refused to see his sons lost physically and spiritually to the streets of Baltimore amid the tumult of the crack era.

Ta-Nehisi writes himself into a long tradition of black men who also could not fit any mold that society offered. This is important, particularly when you juxtapose it against all of the popular imagery of young black stories that celebrate bravado, culde-sac ghetto living, and all of the accompanying pathologies over intellect, introspection, father-son bonding, and the particular quirks of coming-ofage. The Beautiful Struggle is about not getting lost to the streets; it’s about riding its tidal waves, surviving it all then cracking a joke about growing up.

It’s also about igniting one’s imagination and the possibilities that come from reading, and knowing one’s legacy.

The critical reception of The Beautiful Struggle more or less has been good, but it’s important to examine how the critics define “good.” The Washington City Paper masks their praise of the memoir to comparisons of James Joyce and J.D. Salinger. And any writer whose first book was compared to the likes of a Joyce of Salinger should be honored. But what’s

“...that road went right through Dad, whose only point in life was toil. He worked seven days a week.

Big Bill called him the pope, for weekly he issued sweeping edicts like he had a line to God.�

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missing is the discussion of what Coates is actually writing about: being young, black, and (with father) trying to navigate the drama of living in drug-infested West Baltimore with hopes of making something his parents, community, and self can be proud of.

So, not only were the comparisons a bit questionable—since his subject matter is closer to a James Baldwin or a Claude Brown—there also was no real attention to the language. There is a poetic sweep to Coates’ high impact, lean lines. Each sentence is formed like a true wordsmith who came-of-age during the bourgeoning of hip-hop.

Also, there is a stark difference in socioeconomic backgrounds between Holden Caulfield and TaNehisi Coates. It’s troubling that black writers can be so casually compared to white writers without any justification; we’re suppose to just accept it as a compliment. Never mind the way this author implicitly pays homage to his father for being a mentor through it all—he describes his father as being a vegetarian, free-loving, strong (and flawed) black man who worked overtime for the revolution.

In short, one does not have to compare Coates to a J.D. Salinger in order to see validity in what he’s writing about. To survive the hood of Baltimore or elsewhere, one needs to be in conversation with his ancestors, armed with a father who possesses the dedication of a Nat Turner, and the vision of a Frederick Douglass.

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The virtue of The Beautiful Struggle is that weaves a new thread in the African American literary aesthetic where black men have seemingly been limited—only allowed to talk about struggle, forgetting the beauty, the inside journey towards selfhood.

And what a gift Coates shares that his being a writer is directly connected to his father’s love for knowledge and books, making the struggle all the more beautiful and worthy.

Following the release of The Beautiful Struggle, I was able to catch up with Ta-Nehisi Coates about his new memoir.

Abdul Ali: I noticed the title of your memoir is the same as a Talib Kweli album--is there a connection?

Can you expand on your subtitle: a father, two sons, and an unlikely road to manhood?

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Nah, I think that originally refers Continued on page 48

Waiting

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Brown Girl, Brownstones A Novel PAULE MARSHALL

FOREWORD BY EDWIDGE DANTICAT

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The Living Is Easy DOROTHY WEST “[A] powerful work,” and “an American masterpiece,” The Living Is Easy is a vivid portrayal of a beautiful, vivacious, and complicated woman, the daughter of sharecroppers and the wife of a wealthy “banana king.” $16.95 PAPER • 978-1-55861-147-4

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CHAPTER 1

THE BEAUTIFUL STRUGGLE I didn’t catch on till his arms were pumping the wind. Bill was out. Murphy Homes turned to me.

There lived a little boy who was misled . . .

When they caught us down on Charles Street, they were all that I’d heard. They did not wave banners, flash amulets or secret signs. Still, I could feel their awful name advancing out of the lore. They were remarkable. They sported the Stetsons of Hollis, but with no gold. They were shadow and rangy, like they could three-piece you--jab, uppercut, jab--from a block away. They had no eyes. They shrieked and jeered, urged themselves on, danced wildly, chanted Rock and Roll is here to stay. When Murphy Homes closed in on us, the moon ducked behind its black cloak and Fell’s Point dilettantes shuffled in boots.

It was their numbers that tipped me off--no one else rolled this deep. We were surrounded by six to eight, but up and down the street, packs of them took up different corners. I was spaced-out as usual, lost in the Caves of Chaos and the magic of Optimus Prime’s vanishing trailer. It took time for me to get clear. Big Bill made them a block away, grew tense, but I did not understand, even after they touched my older brother with a right cross so awkward I thought it was a greeting.

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In those days, Baltimore was factional, segmented into crews who took their names from their local civic associations. Walbrook Junction ran everything, until they met North and Pulaski, who, craven and honorless, would punk you right in front your girl.

Above them all, Murphy Homes waved the scepter. The scale of their banditry made them mythical.

Wherever they walked--Old Town, Shake and Bake, the harbor--they busted knees and melted faces.

Across the land, the name rang out: Murphy Homes beat niggers with gas nozzles. Murphy Homes split backs and poured in salt. Murphy Homes moved with one eye, flew out on bat wings, performed dark rites atop Druid Hill.

I tried to follow Bill, but they cut me off. A goblin stepped out from the pack-Fuck, you going, bitch?

--and stunned me with a straight right. About that time my Converse turned to cleats and I bolted, leaving dents and divots in the concrete. The streetlights flickered, waved as I broke ankles, blew by, and when the bandits reached to check me, I left

only imagination and air. I doubled back to Lexington Market. There was no sign of Bill. I reached for a pay phone.

Dad, we got banked.

Okay, Son, find an adult. Stand next to an adult.

I’m in front of Lexington Market. I lost Bill.

Son, I’m on the way.

I had crossed a border. This was more than Dad’s black leather belt--I knew how that would end. But word to Tucker’s Kobolds, this thing filing out across the way, lost boys with a stake in only each other, stretching down the block in packs, berserking everywhere, was awful and random. I stood near a man about Dad’s age waiting at a bus stop, like age could shield me. He looked over at me unfazed and then back across the streets at the growing fray of frenzied youth.

were invented, named, patented, and feared-heaven help Bob Backlund in the camel clutch--and we loved that, too, the stew of language that gave a beat down style and grace, that made an eye gouge a ritual.

You could find us, noon on Saturdays, sprawled out on the living room floor, adjusting the hanger behind our secondhand color TV, until the Fabulous Freebirds, Baby Doll, and Ron Garvin emerged from the wavy lines and static. The wrestlers barnstormed the country perfecting their insane number. They were confused. They ranted with the rhythm of black preachers; wore silk robes, bikinis, and spangled belts; carried parasols; and recited poetry. Glossy mags sprung up from nothing, spread their gospel, their scowling mugs, their hollow threats and lore.

They gave dressing room interviews, punctuated by jabs at the air. Whole histories were pillaged, myths bastardized, until Hercules Hernandez stepped off Olympus and the Iron Sheik delivered the Mideast to the Midwest. They held summits and negotiations, all of these ending in a rain of blows.

*** We’d come out that night in search of the wrestlers, who were our latest sensation. They elevated bar fights to a martial art, would rush the ring, all juiced on jeers and applause, white music blaring, Van Halen hair waving in the wind, and raise their chins until their egos were eye level with God. Moves

Other fans had their Hulksters or the golden Von Erichs. But for me only the American Dream could endure.

He waddled down the aisle, bathed in applause and fireworks. His gut poured over bikini trunks. His eyes were black histories.

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The Horsemen would tie the Dream to the ropes, beat him until his hair was a mop of bloody blond.

I’d cringe and pound the floor, yelling for him to get up. But Bill always rooted for villains, and cackled as Ric Flair strutted the ring, flipping his wig of platinum blond. Then the Dream would dig in, reverse figure fours, throw bionic elbows and Sonny Liston rights. In the midst of his fleeing adversaries--the battered Tully Blanchards and shattered Andersons-he’d look out at the crowd gone mad and snatch the mic like KRS-It’s me, the Great. The king of the ring. Like I told you, the Dream IS professional wrestling. I have been to the mountaintop, and it will take a hell of a man to knock me off.

We had to see them. But that road went right through Dad, whose only point in life was toil. He worked seven days a week. Big Bill called him the pope, for weekly he issued sweeping edicts like he had a line to God. He outlawed eating on Thanksgiving, under pain of lecture. He disavowed air-conditioning, VCRs, and Atari. He made us cut the grass with a hand-powered mower. In the morning he’d play NPR and solicit our opinions just to contravene and debate. Once, over a series of days, he did the math on Tarzan and the Lone Ranger until, at six, I saw the dull taint of colonial power. I am sure this is what brought him comically to our side.

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With two tickets to live pro wrestling, he offered a gift and a joke-Go see Kamala the Ugandan Giant. And you will understand, as I do, that that nigger is from Alabama.

At the Baltimore Arena we were in full effect. We peered down from cheap seats so high that the ring was our own gift box. There were white people everywhere, and this was the most I’d ever seen of them. They wore caps and jeans sliced into shorts; herded kids, hot dogs, and popcorn. I thought they looked dirty, and this made me racist and proud.

I’d like to tell you what immediately happened next.

But I don’t remember. I was open, and wanted to cheer the Birdman, resplendent in wraparound shades, a Jheri curl, and fluorescent gold-and-blue spandex. He was always oblivious to his theme music. His tune was internal, and maybe that night he dipped and glided toward the ring, flapping his arms and talking to the parakeets perched on each of his shoulders. I wanted to see the Dream, who was at the height of his feud with the Horsemen, and outnumbered, had taken to guerrilla warfare--masks, capes, ambushes, beef extended into parking lots, driveways and dream dates. But I lost it all out there, and when I dig for that night, all that emerges are the tendrils of Murphy Homes, how they dug into my brother’s head. He was already a kid of the streets.

YBut this highway robbery, this thievery of your own person, pushed him toward something else. He was touched by the desperate, and now fully comprehended the stakes.

I know that Dad and Ma saved me, pulled up in their silver Rabbit, some time after I made the call; that Dad ran off into the swarming night to find his eldest son, and for the first and only time, I was afraid for him. I know that Bill’s mother, Linda, swooped down to the harbor and found Bill first, shuttled him back out to their crib in Jamestown. I know that Bill returned to Tioga days later, and when I told him how I’d dusted Murphy Homes, how I was on some Kid Flash shit, he was incredulous-Fool, they let you get away so they could chase me. *** If the newspapers Dad left around the house were true, the greater world was obsessed over Challenger and the S&L scandal. But we were another country, fraying at our seams. All the old rules were crumbling around us. The statistics were dire and oft recited--1 in 21 killed by 1 in 21, more of us in jail than college.

A cottage industry sprung up to consider our fate.

Jawanza Kunjufu was large in those days, his book

Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys promised answers and so was constantly invoked.

At conferences, black boys were assembled. At schools we were herded into auditoriums. At home, mothers summoned us to dinner tables, and there they delivered the news: Our time was short. *** We lived in a row house in the slope of Tioga Parkway in West Baltimore. There was a small kitchen, three bedrooms, and three bathrooms--but only one that anybody ever wanted to use. All of us slept upstairs. My folks in a modest master. My two sisters, Kris and Kell--when back from Howard University, in an area where Dad also stored his books.

There was a terrace out back, with a rotting wooden balcony. I almost died out there one day. Leaning against the crumbling wood I tumbled headlong, but caught myself on the back door roof and came lucky feetfirst to the ground.

My room was the smallest, and always checkered with scattered volumes of World Book, Childcraft, Dragonlance, and Narnia. I slept on bunk beds made from thick pine, shared the bottom with my baby brother Menelik. Big Bill, as in all things, was up top. By mere months, he was my father’s first son, but he turned this minor advantage into heraldry. He began sentences with “As the oldest Continued on page 46

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A NeW ‘TOON DAWUD ANYABWILE by Robert Truillo

I discovered Dawud Anyabwile’s work about two years ago while researching illustrations that were representative of African Americans and Latinos in contemporary comics and graphic novels. I had never read his stuff before, but I immediately recognized his work. The steely eyes of a superhero; his forehead emblazoned with a huge “B” was permanently imprinted in my mind. I thought “What? I’ve seen this before!”

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I can’t say that I remember exactly which magazine I first saw his work in. I wasn’t much of a book reader and spent my days buried in all kinds of magazines.

Lowrider, Yo!, Fresh, Word Up, Vibe, and The Source were a part of my daily diet. I didn’t find books until I began to question who I was, where I was, and what was happening around me in a profound way.

So, I started taking African-American and Raza (Latino or Hispanic) history classes to learn more about myself. It was after reading ancient traditions and many articles or newspapers dealing with terms like capitalism, imperialism, sexism, socialism, and communism that I began to hunger for some type of comic or visual artwork that tackled some of these issues. I had been drawing and studying art forms such as graffiti, graphic design, muralism, fine art, and illustration my entire life. Dawud’s work spoke to the creative and inquisitive side of my brain.

I was quickly reacquainted with his art and discovered Dawud is a veteran illustrator, cartoonist, animator, and OG Comics creator. I scanned previous interviews he had done on his and other websites and discovered some actual pages from the first few issues of his comic–his original Brotherman comic came out in the early nineties. When I saw some of the pages from the comic, I flipped out. His characters were ridiculous. I looked at it and said to myself, “Damn this #@&% go hella hard.” Raw! What I mean is that seeing African features in young teens and adults in this story was inspiring. Not only that, but it was empowering. I got a sense of destiny and validation. I committed myself to the study of illustration so that I could one day achieve such a level of excellence. I immediately started to read the words and figure out the theme of the narrative

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written by Dawud’s brother Guy A. Sims–they team up on a lot of Dawud’s projects. Their setting is a fictionalized fusion of Philly, New Jersey, and New York. The characters seemed inspired by brothers I’d seen. I’ve been following his work ever since, and found out that I wasn’t the only one. Many young illustrators, visual artists, and cartoonists also tune into his site regularly to show recent work, appreciation, and respect.

In the artistic sense he is not only the illustrator of Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline, but he also creates much of the artwork that decides how Turner Studios’ Cartoon Network will look, feel, and act. If you’re lucky you can catch him at various speaking engagements where he shares his work and experiences. This is priceless information coming from someone who, with the help of his family, has sold over 750,000 comics without major distribution.

This is an important achievement considering that it took place in the early ’90s and that some major recording artists (not to mention cartoonists) don’t move that many units today.

I already tell my son about Brotherman and I can’t wait to see if Dawud creates an animated short or a live-action film based on his hero. Brotherman is by far my favorite of all of his work. It encompasses graffiti, hip-hop culture, traditional comic aesthetics, and elaborate scenery. The hero of the story addresses some tough issues like apathy, laziness, and political corruption.

Thanks for doing what you do Dawud! Much love and respect! You can find Dawud’s work at www. brothermancomics.com. 

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Nichole L. Shields 1969 - 2009

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I could go on about her beautiful soul, business accomplishments, writing skills...

But in the end she was simply my good friend, and I will always be the better for it.

-Ron Kavanaugh Mosaic

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EVeRY W An Interview with GORETTI KYOMUHENDO by Beatrice Lamwaka

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Born in 1965, Ugandan writer Goretti Kyomuhendo is one of the founding members of FEMRITE, the Ugandan Women Writers’ Association and Publishing House where she worked as the programme coordinator for ten years (1997-2007). FEMRITE was created out of a belief that gender-defined support is essential to developing new voices. Kyomuhendo holds an MA in creative writing from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. Her publications include The First Daughter (1996), Secrets No More (1999) which won the 1999 Uganda National Literary Award for Best Novel, Whispers from Vera (2002), and Waiting (2007), her first novel pub-

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lished in the United States.

Kyomuhendo has also written for children: Different Worlds (1998), Sara and the Boy Soldier (2002), Hare and the King’s Cow (2004), A Chance to Survive, and Justus Saves His Uncle (2008). She has also published short stories and used to run regular columns for Ugandan-based newspapers The Monitor and The New Vision. Kyomuhendo was the first Ugandan woman to receive an International Writing Program Fellowship at the University of Iowa in 1997. She currently lives in London.

BL: As one of the founders for FEMRITE do you feel that women writers in Uganda are getting the recognition you dreamt of?

GK: When we started FEMRITE and announced that it was a gender-defined writers’ support group and publishing house, most people did not understand our motivation. After all, writers in Uganda, male included, were having similar difficulties in having their stories published and promoted. But you see, at the time of FEMRITE’s inception in 1996, only a handful of women, about five, I think, were published, compared to an impressive number of their male counterparts. The reasons for this discrepancy were varied: women lacked the confidence and personal empowerment to tell their stories and have them published. Women lacked the space, time, and the facilities to enable them write their stories.

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When we started FEMRITE, these are some of the issues that we set out to address. Women writers who came to join the association were offered the support that they required, including training to enhance their writing skills, and also their personal empowerment--space, a few computers, and most crucially, a facility to publish their stories. Within five years, FEMRITE had published nine books all authored by women, which included novels, poetry, and short stories. Most of these writers went on to become internationally recognized. Over the years, FEMRITE has continued to groom, nurture, and promote upcoming writers who have won some of Africa’s most coveted literary prizes including the Caine Prize for Short Story writing and the Macmillan Writer’s Prize. FEMRITE now has over twenty books published under her imprint, and the association has grown to become one of Africa’s leading writers support groups. So, yes, this is what we dreamt of, to increase the number of women in print, and to give them the opportunity to function, as writers, to the best of their potential.

BL: Where do you get your ideas to write your stories?

GK: My ideas come from my immediate surroundings, really. I never have to stretch my imagination very far. There are simply too many stories around me.

BL: Is there a good opportunity for you as a writer in the UK than in Uganda?

GK: Yes. What I find most fascinating is that most people here in the UK readily understand that writing, though an art, can also be regarded as a job, as a career, as a means of deriving one’s livelihood.

When people in Uganda or elsewhere ask me, ‘So, what do you actually do?’ and I tell them I’m a writer, they look at me with eyes filled with sympathy as if to say, ‘Oh! So you mean you have no job!’ Here, people buy books. There are more publishing houses, many bookshops, and actually, for the first time in my writing career, I’m beginning to meet writers who live on their writing, who have made writing their full time job, and that’s all they do. They can earn enough from it to lead a meaningful life. It’s quite encouraging.

BL: Is your next novel set in the UK? GK: Partly. Some of it is set in Uganda.

BL: You are in a business that sometimes can make you go without food on the table; what keeps you going on?

GK: For me, writing is like a calling. To be honest, I think it is about the only thing job-wise that I really care about. It’s what I want to do with my life. If it was for the money I would have stopped writing

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long ago because I hardly earn anything from my publications, especially those published in Uganda.

But I love doing it. I can’t stop. And usually, it’s always very hard at the beginning, so if you go into it for the money then you can’t last long. But usually things will improve with time, I mean financially.

One day, I will write that book that everyone wants to read and then the money will start coming in.

BL: Would you advise someone to go into writing?

GK: Sure, but only for the right reasons, which should include the love for writing. Very few writers make it big with the first book. Most writers I know have to keep at it for several years, and success comes after a long, long wait, for some, with their tenth book. So, yes, go for it if that’s what you really want to be. It’s hard work, it is frustrating most times; there are no guarantees and it can be extremely lonely and makes you feel isolated. 

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FeMRiTE FEMRITE- Uganda Women Writers’ Association is an indigenous, non-governmental, non-profit making women’s organisation that was launched on May 1, 1996. The organisation came into being at a time when the Ugandan literary scene had almost no visible creative literature written by women.

FEMRITE desired to change that situation and build level ground for Ugandan women creative writers enabling them to contribute to national development through creative writing. FEMRITE acronym stands for Female Writers.

FEMRITE objectives for the period 2007-2011 FEMRITE is a membership organisation whose current objectives are: to develop, publish and promote women writers, to develop and implement a Marketing and Advocacy Strategy, to develop an Information Communication Technology Strategy, to develop a Resource Centre with relevant literary information, to develop the institutional capacity of the organisation and to develop a Research, Monitoring and Evaluation System.

FEMRITE achievements Since her inception, FEMRITE members have worked together to develop their writing, and to promote reading and writing. An organisation that started from very humble beginnings has trained women who have gone on to win or get onto shortlists for nationally, regionally and internationally celebrated literary awards. Below are some of the

1997 * Waltraud Ndagijimana’s story “The Key” was short listed in the BBC short story writing competition * Violet Barungi’s play “Over My Dead Body” won the British Council International New Play Writing Award for Africa and the Middle East 1999 * Mary Karoro Okurut was voted Woman Writer of the New Millennium by New Vision (Uganda’s Leading Daily) Survey * Goretti Kymuhendo’s novel Secrets No More won the National Book Trust of Uganda Literary Award for Best Novel of the Year. * Dr Susan Kiguli’s The African Saga won the National Book Trust of Uganda Poetry Award and the Editor’s Choice Award of the USA National Library of Poetry 2003 * Mary Karoro Okurut’s novel The Official Wife won the National Book Trust of Uganda Literary Award for Best Novel of the Year * Jackee Budesta Batanda’s story “Dance with Me” won Africa Region Commonwealth Short Story Competition * Mildred Kiconco’s poetry anthology Men Love Chocolates But They Don’t Say won the National Book Trust of Uganda Poetry Award * Jackee Budesta Batanda’s story “The Blue Mable” was shortlisted for Macmillan Writers Prize for Af-

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rica, Junior Category 2004 * Monica Arach’s essay “In the Stars” won the first prize in the Women’s WORLD essay writing competition * Mildred Kiconco’s story “Effigy Child” was highly commended for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition * Mary Karoro Okurut’s novel The Official Wife was again voted among Best Books of the year, winning a prize for the second Best novel of the National Book Trust of Uganda * Jackee Budesta Batanda’s story “Dora’s Turn” was highly commended for Commonwealth Short Story Competition * Monica Arach’s short story “Strange Fruits” was short listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing * Jackee Budesta Batanda’s story “Remember Atita” was highly commended for the Caine Prize for African Writing * Doreen Baingana’s story “Hunger” was short listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing * Doreen Baingan’s story, “Tropical Fish” won the Washington Independent Writers Fiction Prize.

2005 * Doreen Baingana’s story “Tropical Fish” was short listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing * Glaydah Namukasa’ s first novel Voice of a Dream won the Macmillan Writers Prize for Africa, Senior

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Category * Jocelyn Ekochu’s novel Shockwaves Across the Ocean was nominated for the Dublin Impac Literary Award 2006 * Doreen Baingana’s short story collection Tropical Fish: STORIES OUT OF ENTEBBE won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for First Best Book, Africa Region. The collection was also shortlisted for Hurston/Wright Award 2006

EXCERPT FROM WAITING: A NOVEL OF UGANDA AT WAR

Waiting: A Novel of Uganda at War Goretti Kyomuhendo Afterword by M. J. Daymond Published by the Feminist Press © 2007 by Goretti Kyomuhendo The birds’ morning conversation woke me up.

Father was already in the bathroom enclosure, and he shouted his greetings to us.

“You use so much water,” Mother commented, looking down at the soapy water, forming rivulets as it ran out from the enclosure into the compound.

“Don’t you have any mercy on the people who fetch it?”

Kaaka made her way towards us, leaning her body on her walking stick. Her big stomach was visible through the long, loose dress she was wearing, and she seemed to be pushing it in front of her as she walked. She used her walking stick to hit a bananafiber ball out of her way, and it rolled towards us before falling into the water streaming out of the bathroom enclosure.

“I slept well,” Kaaka replied. “But why are you bathing so early in the morning?” she asked him.

“I’m going to the Center to try to get some news,” he replied. “I want to know what’s happening in the city.”

“But so early in the morning!”

“It’s not that early,” Father protested. “Look, the sun is already up.”

“But won’t you eat first?”

“When I come back. I want to catch people before they go their separate ways.”

“But what ways can they go? Today is Sunday, and the churches are not open. All the priests are in hiding.”

“They go to the beer clubs,” Father laughed briefly.

• • • Father came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, and inquired about Kaaka’s night.

We had learned about the details of the war a month

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before, when Father returned from the city where he had worked at the Main Post Office as a clerk.

He told us that President Idi Amin was about to be overthrown by a combined force of Ugandans who lived in exile and the Tanzanian soldiers who were assisting them. The soldiers were advancing quickly, heading for Kampala from the southwestern border that Uganda shared with Tanzania. The districts along that route were already in the hands of the Liberators.

people had retreated to the villages, which were much safer. The soldiers, who felt they had nothing more to lose as the Liberators approached, had taken over Hoima town and had set up roadblocks from which they attacked people trying to move from one location to another.

Amin’s soldiers were looting shops, hospitals, banks, and private homes in the city. They wanted to seize as much as they could before the Liberators arrived. Some were fleeing towards the West Nile and Northern Ugandan regions, their home areas.

People had vacated the city in fear of both the advancing Liberators and the fleeing soldiers. No one knew what each group was likely to do to civilians.

“We must dig a pit immediately,” he informed us.

“Last night they invaded five homes near the Center and stole everything of value. Luckily, the families were sleeping in the bush, otherwise they could have killed them too. But everything was taken— everything. Now we must hide whatever we own that’s of value.”

Our district was situated on one of the highways that led, via Lake Albert, to the West Nile and northern regions, and so, Amin’s soldiers were using it as their exit route. And they had come in large numbers, invading the town of Hoima, looting, and killing people at night. The bush and banana plantations were the safest places to sleep, and during the day most homes posted a sentry in a tree to watch out for the soldiers. All shops, churches, schools, banks, hospitals, and police stations were closed, and most

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Riding his bicycle at breakneck speed, Father sped back from the Center.

He was speaking breathlessly and gesturing like an actor. He asked Tendo to fetch the spade and the pick, saying that they would dig the hole a little distance from the sleeping area where the trees and shrubs were thicker.

By midday, the red soil that Tendo had scooped out from the pit as Father dug had formed a large mound like an anthill. Kaaka lit a big fire to soften the banana leaves that would be used to line the pit.

By evening, we were ready to take our most valuable possessions to the pit: the bicycle—which Father had dismantled—our mattresses, the radio, the saucepans, and our best clothes. We covered them with mats and goatskins, then we placed two old corrugated iron sheets on top.

That night we did not go to the sleeping place.

Mother’s back was hurting badly, and the balm did not soothe it. Father did not want to leave her alone in the house. He would go out every now and then to scout for soldiers before returning to his foldaway chair beside Mother. I had been sent to tell Nyinabarongo that she should come and sleep at our house; the Lendu woman was to go to Uncle Kembo’s house.

Nyinabarongo and I walked back to our house together. I carried the little girl, and Nyinabarongo carried her sleeping things.

“Did you hide all your valuables in a pit?” she asked, as we walked along the small path from her house to ours. The dew from the spear grass felt cold on my legs. Threads of smoke rose from the grass thatch of the Lendu woman’s house.

“Yes, almost everything. What about you?”

“I hid only the mattress and a blanket. I dug a shallow pit. I hope they will be safe. The termites

could eat them, you know.”

We reached the house. I undid the cloth I had used to tie the child on my back and she slid down to the ground. She seemed weightless! Like a waif. My shoulder felt damp where she had rested her head.

After we had eaten, we went to bed. Kaaka came to sleep in our house in case Mother needed her during the night, and slept in the small bedroom I usually shared with Maya. Nyinabarongo laid her sleeping things on the floor there too. She placed the child on the mat and covered her with the piece of cloth that I had used to carry her. Tendo slept in the sitting room, and Maya and I slept in his room. We could hear Father moving about—going out—and coming in again. He did not sleep much, though he had said he was very tired from digging the pit.

• • •

Kaaka was calling my name. I opened one eye. The yellow light from the lantern blinded me. Mother was whimpering softly. Her head was raised, and she seemed to be looking down over her stomach.

“It’s almost here,” Kaaka was saying. “I can see the hair now. Big head.” She called my name again, and I responded.

Continued on page 42

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When Junot Díaz published his first book, Drown, it was met with critical acclaim from countless media sources. Described as “mesmerizingly honest,” “powerful” and “convincing,” Díaz’s work has been published in The New Yorker, GQ, The Paris Review and African Voices (among others).

About 12 years later, the Dominican-American writer has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (2008) with his first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Díaz took the time to speak with Mosaic Magazine about the trajectory of his career, the challenges facing writers of color, and the unrelenting issue of identity.

AI: How did you convince your family, as well as yourself, that you were going to be a writer, especially coming from an immigrant background?

JD: I didn’t. I think I probably have the worst, dullest story about this. I didn’t realize that I was really serious about this until my first book was published. It was really kind of half-assed, where you do it, but you don’t really commit yourself, you’re still afraid. Years after the book came out I still wouldn’t say that I was a writer. I think I had internalized

JuNOT’S An Interview with JUNOT DIAZ by Allison Isaac

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OSCaR 37

so much of my family’s ideas about being an artist.

I think that the biggest challenge for me as an artist was never the material, it’s always been myself.

AI: Oscar is quite different from most of the other protagonists in your short stories. How did you and Oscar find each other?

JD: I kind of have the same narrator, the same alterego in most of the work, and Oscar was just a fascinating contracanto, countersong. There’s something really illuminating about putting those two guys together. If you’re a smart kid of color, chances are, you’re a freak, especially if you’re from a poor immigrant community of African descent from the Caribbean. These are not places where people are very familiar with the smarty-pants, hyper-literate little kid. And I thought our alienation, vis-a-vis the immigration process and the racial voyage of the New World, plays itself out in a really interesting way if you happen to be smart. I think nobody catches as much shit for no reason. I mean, plenty of people catch shit–try being gay in my community–but I mean nobody seems to catch more unwarranted, bizarrely irrational, strange shit, just for being smart; you’d think that would be a positive thing, even by the most bigoted of standards. But I watch little kids who are smart in these poor, immigrant communities–not always, but at least in my experience–grow up beleaguered, ridiculed, and their most fundamental identity questioned because

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of the very fact that you’re a smarty-pants, which means you’re some sort of secret traitor. People are always like, “You’re so white, you’re not like us.”

And I thought it was such a fascinating way to talk about Dominicans, or your “local” culture and also the culture that has received us.

AI: Tell me about the fukú in the traditional/folkloric sense, as well as the way you used it in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. JD: There’s no definitive answer to the first part–it’s folkloric belief, therefore, it’s shifting. You can ask a thousand different people what it means and you’ll get a thousand variations. It’s understood as a curse, sometimes linked to the deeper history of the New World, to Christopher Columbus in a fundamental way. But other times it’s just some sort of bad luck that can be afflicted on you, or that you can acquire through your actions or misdeeds. I took the form I found most telling and in my opinion, the deepest: bad luck brought on by the history of the New World, by the nightmare that was conquest and enslavement. And there are plenty of sectors in the community who believe that we’re all living under the historical doomsday cloud that was produced first in the Caribbean but expanded slowly outward. In my book, that’s present throughout, and the other thing that’s present is the idea that at a more local, personal level, that all the histories that are invisible to us and also unacknowledged,

still exert a tremendous amount of influence on our choices. In the most simplistic way–and I say this, understanding that it’s simplistic–who we find desirable has everything to do with what happened in the first hundred years of conquest and enslavement.

How desire is shaped for those of us who survived this…fundamentally a child of that traumatic experience…I mean, where did we learn about light skin being beautiful, where did we learn to desire white people more than we desire ourselves? Where did we learn to have such poor relationships with our bodies? All of this stuff is generalized within any given experience, but I think it’s been made far more acute, far more extreme, and far more painful and pragmatic from the fact that most of us were enslaved and owned and raped for hundreds of years.

And I guess those things don’t go away so easily; I think we’d all like to believe they do. I think we’d all like to believe that we are unaffiliated agents in the world. Maybe as an individual you might think so, but when you look more closely at our behavior on a collective level we seem to have a lot in common.

And it all seems to have a lot in common with the way we were wounded in that initial New World moment.

AI: As a writer of color, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of color, what sort of passport do you hold in the literary world?

JD: The same passport I held before. I don’t think

I’m the sum total of my prizes. They always tell you white folks get two, three, four, five chances to reinvent themselves. We’re often just given prizes so we can be destroyed and ignored, and reminded of our position. Being an artist of color in the United States–whether one is given laurels or not–I would not describe it as any safer or more stable than being your average person of color in the United States. I see all these wonderful artists of color who’ve done tremendous work that nobody cares about. The idea isn’t that one individual gets a pass, you don’t feel safe or home on an individual level. The idea is that 10, 20, 30 people like you of your generation are getting the same thing. I guess I’ve never felt that this is a natural or safe state to be “The One.” I mean, maybe other people really like that shit, but in my mind I think that’s problematic of a system that really doesn’t acknowledge and reward enough of the activities of lots of different sectors.

AI: There’s a lot of Spanish in the book, but the Spanish isn’t translated. What sort of reaction have you had from non-Spanish speaking readers?

JD: I love it: You get on Amazaon.com, and you see the reaction from mainstream readers, there’s been a lot of straight up xenophobic hate. Like half my comments are, “Don’t read this book, it’s all in Spanish. It’s by a Latin American writer.” But the real reason I did it wasn’t to piss anybody off.

The real reason I did it was books are there to form

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a community, books are there to invite you, as a reader, to reach out to someone who can explain the bits you don’t understand. A novel is read individually and approached collectively. It [the Spanish] wasn’t there to alienate or to create any political statements–I mean, they are, of course, their own political statement–but at the most fundamental level…I mean, my friends who all speak Spanish don’t know any of the comic book stuff. For them, that sticks out more than any of the Spanish. But an English speaker is so traumatized by the presence of the Spanish that they don’t even notice all the other alien words. They’re just like, “Eh, comic book shit.” So we naturalize some things and make “others” out of other things.

AI: What is the community like among Caribbean writers (outside the Caribbean)?

JD: I think it’s really strong, but maybe that’s because the writers who I really like and want to spend my time around are Caribbean people. I think of Colin Channer, Edwidge Danticat, Hannah Menendez, Nalo Hopkinson…it’s so strange because I feel like in so many ways we’re much closer than we would be at home. The dream of the Antillean Federation lives, I think, in exile. But again, my point of view is probably really skewed because I’m really into that.

I think of my boy, Alejandro Aguilar, all of these Caribbean cats, we’re all in it together.

AI: Where is home?

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JD: I always joke around that home is getting ready to board a plane to Santo Domingo or the United States. Home is an oscillation between two places I’ve never felt completely comfortable in, and yet feel totally comfortable in. I don’t have anything to compare it to, I’ve never felt like I was a divided person. How can you feel like you’re a divided person when all you’ve known is two countries? I’ve never felt any identity confusion at all, because to have identity confusion would mean you knew this moment of utter clarity, and then suddenly had this moment of non clarity. I assume everybody is as mixed up vis-a-vis their place of origin as I am. I just refuse to pathologize this. I see all these white kids who leave their hometowns and never go back and don’t want to talk about it, and I’m like, “Okay, and who’s more fucked up?” Immigration makes explicit a very human condition. It’s not to say that being an immigrant is the same as leaving your suburb of Toronto to move to the city. But what I’m saying is, to me, it seems like an extreme version of something everybody deals with all the time: Who am I? What really is my home? Why does nobody in my “culture” understand me? It sounds pretty normal, but because we’re immigrants, we’re taught that it’s more than that.

AI: You’ve spoken about writers of color having to be spokespersons for their entire ethnic group, but also how not wanting anything to do with their community is equally as toxic. How do we find the balance?

JD: First of all, you’re no spokesperson, period.

If you just take that right off the table, you’ll be a healthier person. One particular, bizarre, overprivileged writer–because if you’re writing you’re overprivileged no matter what the fuck your source background was–is not going to be speaking for anyone besides [himself]. I think many people can find communion in your work, I think many people can find things that are representative of what they believe is their collective experience, but that has nothing to do with you directly, that’s your work.

You got to make sure to let your work do its work and you do your shit. I think if you take that off the table and take off the table being a sellout Uncle Tom, self-hating doof, once you get those two extremes out, everything else in-between can be quite healthy. The idea isn’t that it’s a situation that gets settled once and for all, it’s a journey. But both of these poles represent particularly odious byproducts of the colonial experience. And I think that if anything makes for good, clean living for a person of African descent, it’s to confront and demolish a lot of those toxic colonial structures within ourselves.

a lot riding on me. People want you to tell their stories, or they want you to be the promised child.

Recognizing that sometimes there are unrealistic but understandable demands on you as a person doesn’t mean that you’re in any way beholding to them. My question is: Do these demands, do these expectations outweigh the enormous privilege I have? It seems like an incredibly small price to pay to be the one person who didn’t get raped so much that my spirit was shattered, who didn’t go to prison because of a simple mistake or because we have such an unfair system that prosecutes us at 10 times the rate of white people. I just think of the enormous privilege I have. And while I know its weight can be something we wrestle with, I just put it into perspective. I’m like, holy shit, what a small price to pay. At least once a reading in the United States, people are like, “Why don’t you tell this story?” And I’m like, “Because that is your story. It sounds like something you want to do.” A lot of times, we look at people and we say, “Why aren’t they doing this?” But what we really want to say is, “Why am I not doing this?”

And I think that that’s more important. 

AI: Do you feel any pressures/responsibilities from your community?

JD: Of course. We’re in a situation where most of our community is not given any advantage or opportunity. In fact, the system is organized to guarantee that a huge sector of our communities is neutralized. And so that means that a lot of people have

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“Where are the baby things your father brought from the city?”

“In the pit,” I replied.

“Go and get them, quick,” she said, urgently.

“I’m afraid of the dark,” I told Kaaka.

“It’s almost morning! The cocks are already crowing.

Your father is out there. Ask him to take you to the pit.”

Mother let out a prolonged groan, pushing. Kaaka turned her attention to her and urged her to push harder. I stood up and wrapped Mother’s dress around my shoulders. Then I moved to the door and opened it. Quickly, I stepped outside. I walked swiftly, noiselessly, the soft grass beneath my feet muffling the sound of my footsteps. The gentle light from the breaking dawn made the banana trees look like the silhouettes of soldiers standing to attention.

“Who is it?” Father’s voice called out quietly but loudly enough to make me jump.

“It’s me,” I replied.

“How is your mother?” he asked anxiously. “Has the baby arrived? Is she all right?” He was whispering.

“The baby is almost out. I’ve come to fetch the baby clothes from the pit,” I whispered back.

“Why ever did you put them in the pit? At times, you can be very stupid. You knew the baby was going to arrive soon.” He sounded both excited and fearful.

He removed the two corrugated iron sheets gently

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in order to make as little noise as possible. “Now, where are the clothes?” he whispered hoarsely, “I hope they’re not right down at the bottom.”

Silently, I pointed out the plastic bag, which was sitting on top, where Mother had told me to put it. Father picked it up and handed it to me; the soft light and the silence was broken only by the croaking sound of the frogs.

We had begun moving towards the house when we heard the gunshots. Their harsh barks sounded very close. Father pulled me to the ground, and I crouched beside him. More shots rang out from all sides. Father beckoned me to crawl closer to where the banana trees were at their thickest and would shield us from the light of the dawn. Heavy boots ran towards the house.

“God have mercy,” Father whispered.

My heart was beating so loudly I thought the soldiers would hear it. I raised my head a little and saw six men in army uniforms walking towards the house.

They were speaking loudly, and one of them raised his gun and shot into the air. I started to scream, but Father clamped his hand over my mouth and choked the scream back.

“I have to go and save your mother and Kaaka,” Father whispered. He crawled a few paces forward.

I crawled behind him, the plastic bag tight under my arm.

Father looked back and made an impatient gesture for me to stay where I was. He crawled a little further ahead. Daylight had now broken, and we could see the soldiers clearly. They were shouting, but I could not make out their words. It sounded as

if they were speaking in another language.

Kaaka came out of the house. She seemed unafraid.

Father had stopped moving. Kaaka asked the soldiers loudly what they wanted. They all started talking at once, pointing their guns at her. More soldiers came. Kaaka told them urgently that she was in the process of delivering a baby, and she was needed back in the house.

The soldiers sounded agitated and dangerous, and I wished I could warn Kaaka to speak to them nicely.

Father slowly rose to his feet. I could not believe it.

Had we not been told that they would kill the men first? Fear seemed to freeze my mind. Again a soldier fired in the air. Father dropped to his knees. The soldiers advanced until about three or four of them stood in the doorway, shouting. Father seemed to understand what they were saying, and I heard him whisper something, his voice shaking.

“If you want food, I don’t have any. If you want . . .” Kaaka’s voice faded as the men simply pushed her aside.

The soldiers who had been standing in the doorway followed, and they all entered the house. Father cursed, regretting that Kaaka had talked him into sleeping in the banana plantation. I felt someone moving behind me and gasped. Uncle Kembo put his hand on my shoulder. “Shh,” he said, “It’s only me,” and somehow I felt a little comforted that we were not quite alone.

One soldier seemed to be roughing up Kaaka. He shouted at her, and Uncle Kembo translated. “They want women, food, and money,” he said, “and they want to know where everyone else is hiding.” But Kaaka did not understand their language. Uncle

Kembo said they were speaking in Kiswahili, a language mainly spoken by Amin’s soldiers.

Kaaka laughed loudly, scornfully. “Do you have no respect?” she called out. “No shame? Pushing around an old woman, who is trying to deliver a baby?”

One soldier kicked her hard in the stomach. Kaaka screamed. Father stood up again, ready to move forward, panga poised.

Uncle Kembo spoke. “Don’t be stupid. How can a man armed with a panga fight twenty men with guns?”

“But we have to do something!” Father hissed desperately.

Lying on the ground, Kaaka continued talking. “You want to kill an old woman like me? Go ahead then.

What have I to fear?”

The soldier kicked her again. The three or four who had entered the house came out and started talking to those outside. Two had climbed into the mango tree, and its branches creaked under their weight.

They began throwing the fruit down to their friends, who snatched them up and ate like monkeys. For a moment, the tension seemed to ease.

But the soldiers began to argue as they ate the mangoes and threw the seeds into the yard.

Uncle Kembo translated. “Some say they must search and find the owners of the home. Others are arguing that the house is empty with nothing of value to steal, so they should move on.” Their loud voices sounded ugly as they echoed across the

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empty yard.

Kaaka slowly managed to sit up. The soldier who had assaulted her muttered something, and the other soldiers laughed as if they were drunk. Kaaka spoke again, “Go, you beasts! I have to attend to a woman giving birth to a baby who will be more useful than you. How can you beat a woman old enough to be your great-grandmother?

“Do you think you can scare me? Me, who used to beat my husband until he urinated in his trousers?

Heeeeh,” she laughed. “If you are real men, go and fight with your enemy, instead of coming here to terrorize a poor harmless old woman like me. Eh?” “What’s wrong with her?” Father was beside himself.

“Only one of them needs to understand her, and she’s dead!”

a groan escaping from his lips. Kaaka was covered in blood. He bent over her.

I was still clutching the plastic bag that contained the baby’s things when I ran inside the house to find Mother.

Mother was gasping, and calling out softly for help.

I saw a cushion of blood, and heard a baby crying.

Mother told me to find a small bundle under her pillow, which contained a razor blade and some cotton, wool, and gauze.

“Cut,” she commanded, when I told her I’d found it.

“Cut what?”

“The umbilical cord.”

The soldier whom she had addressed pointed his gun at her and fired. Then he fired again, aiming at her stomach. The other soldiers had walked away; one who seemed to be their leader shouted at him to follow them. The soldier kicked Kaaka once more and she screamed loudly. Then he turned around and began to walk away. The sound of their footsteps beat loudly on the dry earth.

Father was standing, his arms lifted in despair and frustration. There was a movement behind me in the bushes, and the women joined us, Nyinabarongo’s child clinging to her back. We heard the soldiers laughing in the distance, and then, finally, they were gone. We all stood up and started talking, breathless with anxiety. Uncle Kembo silenced us with a curt movement of his hand.

Father rushed forward into the yard, something like

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My hands trembled, and I could not hold the razor blade steady. I could not see the cord. I feared to look at the jellied blood next to the baby. I thought I might vomit and tried hard to contain myself. Then I saw something like a fleshy string, coiling out of the bloody mess and winding its way to the baby’s stomach.

I severed the cord. Nervously, too quickly. Only half of it was cut. It was thick, thicker than I had imagined. The baby was crying loudly. It had lots of hair, but it was covered in caked blood. Mother was commanding me to cut. I put the razor on the cord again and cut. Slash! It fell off.

She asked me to bring the clean basin I had washed the previous night, and put the afterbirth in it. I touched it gingerly, my hands still trembling. I tried

to get hold of the afterbirth, but it slipped through my fingers and fell back towards the baby. It danced around in the pool of blood still seeping from Mother’s womb, swimming like an egg yolk.

“Give me the baby,” Mother told me. “Is it a girl?”

I was shivering so badly that I could hardly speak. I tried to hold the baby, but it was covered in slippery liquid. Mother pulled herself up into a sitting position and reached for the baby. She picked up the dress I had used to cover myself, and wrapped the baby in it.

“Don’t throw the afterbirth in the latrine,” Mother was talking to me. Her voice seemed distant and weak. I could see her mouth opening and closing, but I could not hear what she was saying. “Dig a hole and bury it there—deep, so the dogs don’t find it and eat it.” The words seemed to be falling from her lips.

• • •

I am seated next to her, holding the baby. He has refused to take milk because his gums are covered with weals. He is crying silently, his mouth opening and closing like a baby bird when it wants to drink water. I stand up and put him on my shoulder and start rocking him back and forth. His head dangles from his soft neck, and I quickly place my right hand at his nape to support him. Saliva, mixed with blood, dribbles from the corner of his mouth onto my dress.

Maya comes back from the well carrying the big earthen pot on her head. She asks me to help her put it down. Stupid girl, can’t she see I am holding the sick child?

“Ask Mother,” I tell her.

“Mother is not here!” Maya yells at me.

But I can still hear Mother singing the song of the doves, which we had baptized “Kaaka’s song” because she loved to sing it to us and narrate the story of its origin.

Mother sings as she works. She is seated on a low stool, her legs crossed at the ankles. She is washing the plates and cups we used for last night’s supper.

She is singing the song of the doves:

When the white people first came to our village, Kaaka was only a little girl, and small girls and boys never used to wear clothes. They would just cover their private parts with pieces of goatskin.

Kade efokere kisato (The calico has turned into a goatskin) Kade efokere kisato (The calico has turned into a goatskin) Mujungu agambire kugyokya (The white man has said he is going to burn it) Mujungu agambire kugyokya (The white man has said he is going to burn it)

The white men ordered that all girls should wear dresses to cover their breasts and buttocks, but their parents were too poor to buy the readymade dresses sold in the shops. Instead, they used calico to make wraps that the young girls wore for a long time. They never seemed to wear out—like goatskins. The white men became angry because the adults were not buying the ready-made dresses

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sold in their shops. One day, all the white men in the village gathered for a meeting and decided that the young girls should burn their calicos, so they would be forced to buy dresses.

A female dove was sitting in the branch of the tree under which the meeting was being held and heard this conversation. She started singing to the young women as they passed by on their way to the plantations in the morning, warning them that the white man was going to burn their wraps: Kade efokere kisato Kade efokere kisato Mujungu agambire kugyokya Mujungu agambire kugyokya I can’t hear Mother’s voice anymore. A mist is rising in thin strands, swirling around the top of Kakundi hill. I can vaguely see Maya’s figure moving about the yard. The mist begins to thicken, completely shrouding the mountain’s top with layers of cloud.

The baby starts to cry again, making buzzing sounds close to my ear, like a mosquito. After a while, the mist begins to clear, and I can now see the hilltop again and Maya’s figure more clearly. But where is Mother? 

son...” and sought to turn all his younger siblings into warriors. Big Bill was seldom scared. He had a bop that moved the crowd, and preempted beef.

When bored, he’d entertain himself, cracking on your busted fade, acne, or your off-brand kicks. *** Bill: Ta-Nehisi, get the fuck outta here with those weak-ass N.B.A.s. Know what that shit stands for?

Next time buy Adidas. And, Gary, I don’t know what you laughing at in those four-stripe Cugas. Know what that means? Nigger, can u get Adidas . . . *** In those days, crazy Chuckie threatened our neighborhood. When we lined up for five on five, every tackle he took personally, every block was an invite to scrap. Once he pulled a metal stake from the ground, swung it at fat Wayne until he retreated all the way into our living room. That’s when Dad came out and revealed the face of This Is Not a Game. Chuckie cursed and waved the stake. Then he stalked off. That night I lay on the bottom bunk, replaying it all for Bill. *** Me: Man, Chuckie is crazy.

Bill: Fuck Chuckie. If he ever step to me, I’ll fuck him up. *** That fall, Chuckie killed his father, got gaffled by the jakes, and disappeared into the netherworld of Boys’ Village or Hickey Juvenile.

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Private school Stevie lived two doors down. I’d sit outside playing with his G.I. Joes until I realized that this made me a target. Across the street was Mondawmin Mall, the fashion seat of West Baltimore, the pit of sex, beat downs, and cool. Every window glittered with leather, fur, sterling, and stickers with large red numbers and slash marks. But the price tags and fat-ass honeys made boys turn killer.

One misstep onto suede Pumas, and the jihad begins. In those days cocaine was the air, and though I never saw a fiend fire up, the smoke darkened everything, turned our homey town into a bazaar of cheap ornaments bought expensively, a Gomorrah on the inner harbor. A young man’s worth was the width of his blond cable-link chain. The space between two, three, then four finger rings marked footmen from cavalry, cavalry from the great gentry of this darker age. In all our dreams we cruised the avenue in black Cherokee Jeeps, then parked at the corner of Hot and Live, our system flogging eardrums, pumping “Latoya” and “Sucker MCs.” Even I shared those dreams, and I was only ten.

While I was hobbled by preteen status and basic nature, Big Bill was enthralled by the lights.

This was the summer of ‘86. KRS-One laid siege to Queensbridge. I would stand in my bedroom, throwing up my hands, reciting the words of Todd Smith--”Walkin’ down the street, to the hardcore beat/While my JVC vibrates the concrete.” Bill and my brother John spent all summer busing tables. Bill schemed on a fat rope, one that dangled from his neck like sin. Still, his money was young, and he could not stomach the months of layaway. So he returned from the mall with two mini-ziplock bags, each the size of a woman’s fist, each glimmering, like him, in the light. They held massive rings, one adorned with a golden kite, another spanning two fingers, molded into a dollar sign.

He flashed them before me, and I was caught by how the glowing metal made him swell inside his own skin. He was profiling, lost in all his glory, when Dad stepped to him. *** Dad: Son. They’re fake. Son, you’ve been had.

Bill: You’re bugging. This is fourteen-karat. I paid cash money.

Dad: Son, Son. Let’s have them smelted down and tested. If it’s ten karats or more, I will pay you for the rings. With interest. *** Bill’s head went reeling, the dream within reach: He saw a gold herringbone spread over his Black BVD, and when he bopped through Mondawmin, jennys would jump on his jock and soldiers would collapse or salute. In the order of Slick Rick, Bill would wear the scarlet robe. So he agreed to my father’s proposition, convinced he was on the better end. We were young, drunk on ourselves, and could not know that all the alleys we took as original, he’d stepped through before. He found a place to smelt the gold, do the math. And I don’t know what was worse--the negative results or Dad’s rueful chuckle and sermon. Afterward, Dad went over to Mondawmin and had Bill point out the merchants.

Then he walked to the glass counter, brandished the results, and spoke magic words. The magic words were “fraud,” “Black community,” and “State’s attorney.” Bill never felt the same about gold again.

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to a MLK speech. It was my editor’s idea, actually.

As far as the subtitle, we just wanted to allude to the path that so many young black boys--and boys in general--have trouble walking. That is the major theme of the book.

AA: What was your impetus for this memoir?

TC: I’ve been writing this in various forms since I was a kid MCing. I really wanted to write a piece of narrative that told the story of kids who came up in the crack age. It was such a dangerous and yet colorful time. I did my best to capture that spirit and then wrap it around the story of two boys trying to advance into manhood.

AA: Do you see any connections between your story and Claude Brown’s Manchild in the Promised Land? Though ages apart, both of you became writers and went to the Mecca and wrote movingly about coming of age.

TC: Heh, I’d leave the connection-drawing to others.

AA: Above all, what would you like your readers to take away from your memoir?

TC: More than anything I want them to feel these people in the book as human beings. I want them to have some understanding of them as real people, as opposed to simple statistics. And I want them to enjoy the story.

AA: I’m particularly interested in how you chose to end the memoir. It wasn’t clear what happened to your younger brother Melenik.

TC: Menelik just graduated from Howard. My long-

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time partner Kenyatta actually came up with the ending. We were driving past that park one day and I told her about the memory. As soon as she heard it, she said, “Man, you’ve got to end your book with that story.” It was just a great emotional capper. And I thought there was something interesting about it ending with Menelik firing a gun--even if it was a water gun. 

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Mosaic is a quarterly magazine exploring the literary arts by writers of African descent. Each issue contains a unique blend of essays, profiles, and reviews.

To subscribe visit www.mosaicmagazine.org

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