 Welcome, everybody, and thank you for being here. We welcome you to the 2021 A.K.O. Cane Prize Conversation hosted by Africa Rights and the British Library. My name is Desta Haile, and I'm the Deputy Director of the Royal African Society, the organization that brings you Africa Rights. We're so excited to have you here tonight. Tonight's event explores and celebrates the stories shortlisted for the annual A.K.O. Cane Prize for African Writing. I'm pleased to present the finalists, Doreen Baingana, Meroon Hadero, and Irene Tushabe, who will read from their stories and be in conversation with feminist, blogger, and publisher, Keenan Likimani. There will also be a chance for you to ask your questions towards the end of the event. Just a little housekeeping before we get started from our partners at the British Library. Use the menu above to provide us with your feedback, and also to donate to the British Library. 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Now over to you, Kina. Thank you very much. Welcome again everyone to the 2021 Cane Prize conversation. I am Kina Likimani, and I will be your host and moderator for this evening's conversation. Welcome to three of the shortlisted writers, Doreen Bangana, Irene Tishabi, and Meron Hadero. So this is going to be a fun experience, and I'm a very easy host. So welcome again. We'll go through the conversation, readings and conversations, and then in the last part, we'll invite the audience for some questions. So welcome again, Doreen, Meron, and Irene. We'll begin by asking each of you to read and accept from your short story, and we'll begin with Doreen, followed by Irene and then Meron. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm so delighted to be here, hosted by Africa Rights. Thank you, the British Library, and the conversation with the other shortlisted writers and Kina really looking forward. My short story is called Lucky, and the setting is boys who have been abandoned at their boarding school during a war. So that's, I think, all you need to know, and I'll read a short excerpt. Take my eyes and force escape to Mosaic's stories. Ask me the name of any gun. Beretta 92, AK-47, AKM, AK-74, Type 56. What hadn't I learned from Mosaic or Kiror? The deacons had tried to chase him away from outside St. Mark's, but he was a fixture like the monster marabout stalks that we screamed and threw stones at. They would squawk and swap away, swap up and away, but hover in the trees nearby and soon return, landing like clumsy helicopters. Mosaic or Kiror would aim his rifle at one of them. His eyes so wrinkled they seemed shut, gun trembling in his gnawed hands. We waited, holding onto each other. Ah, they're just birds. Me, I kill people. He stretched open his mouth with silent laughter, exposing rosy gaps, saliva dribbling as he beat his skinny thigh. Every time we waited breathlessly for the shot, and every time, somehow, he fooled us and we stomped our feet, annoyed. You say we shall report you. All the Kiror made up for this by letting us watch as he opened his gun lovingly and polished it, rub, rub, rubbing each section with a dark oily cloth, holding it delicately close like an injured child. It seemed alive to me, like the metal breathed even as it could stop breath. I remained by Mosaic's side for hours in the idle holiday afternoons, long after the other boys had got bored and run off. Mosaic had stories. It seems he had fought in every army. One day, he would say he was with the African rifles of World War II, fighting for the British in Burma, wherever that was. Then next, the colonial army had to pacify the Karama Zhong. He said the word in English, explaining, you know them. They never want to be ruled by anybody, not alone wives. That's when he came back with lots of cows and got his first wife. Then the next time, he said he took part in the Buganda King's palace in Kampala in 1966. Then later, he volunteered with SPLA in Sudan in the 1980s and even later trained the UNLA to fight the NRA. When I told my mother, breathless, counting the armies on my fingers, she chewed her teeth. What a bunch of lies. That Mosaic was in Amin's army and survived it with nothing, not even his teeth. Do you think he has a brain left? But he had. I knew this because he knew the names of many, many guns and he drew them for me at the back of my exercise book, even though his fingers couldn't really bend properly. His fingers were as stiff and hard as metal and they were the same gray-black color as the gun itself, as if the gun itself had seeped into his fingers. But when my mother saw the pictures, she tore out the pages, spoiling my exercise book. Chewing her teeth juicily, she tore them into tiny little pieces, opened her palms, and let pieces flutter to the ground, her eyes hard on me. You want to be like him, proud of having done nothing but fight other people's wars. You want to end up like him with nothing but stories. Rubbish. Thank you, Doreen. Irene. Thank you. Thank you, Doreen, for that very vivid image. It's very clear. It comes through very strong. I'm going to read from my short story, which is titled A Separation. A separation follows a young woman named Harriet and Harriet has just moved to Canada to study, to complete her PhD in primatology at the University of Regina. And I'll pick up at this point, she's looking back on the last night she shared with her grandmother after hearing news that her grandmother has passed away. I'll have more tea. Kaka says on the evening before I leave for Canada. But when I refill her cup, she sets it on the tree stump behind her next to the kerosene lantern radiating amber lights into the dusk. The light makes shadows of the wrinkles in her mahogany face, lying there on the mat. She looks solemn as if trying to untangle knots from an old memory. I'm struck by how tiny she is, how little the space she takes up on our mat. She reminds me of the stub of a pencil worn with its work, the best of its years shaped away. I was eight years old when mothers succumbed to the poison of a black mamba. That's when Kaka came to live with father and me. Grandfather had left her years before to go live with a much younger woman. On the day of my mother's funeral, Kaka told me that Niaviinji, the rain goddess of tribe worships, had called mother into the spirit world. She wanted me to understand that my mother still lived on, only now her physical presence was lost to us. I wanted to tell her that her explanation was cruel, that it only made it harder for me to grieve for my mother. Tell me again how she died. I say willing myself to accept her view of death, that it births one into a form of one self bigger than life and visible only to the living whose eyes have grown eyes. You know how it happened. If you still have to ask, it means you doubt, my Kaka says. But how do you know for certain that Niaviinji took her? How do you know if Niaviinji exists? I hear myself asking her because her spirit has visited me every night since she passed on. That's how I know. This is brand new information. I don't know how to respond to it. So I lie there quietly, too many questions hanging in the air above me. The day after mother's funeral, Kaka packed a picnic. She sat me down by the river and said, repeat after me, my mother has been ushered into the spirit world. I repeated the phrase because she'd asked me to, not because I believed it. Say it with conviction, she pleaded. I am certain of it. The way I know that the moon is the moon and the sun is the sun. I wanted to believe her, really I did. But when the customary week of morning ended and I returned to school, I told anyone who asked that a snake, which moves faster than most people can run, whose venom is so potent and fast acting that only two drops of it paralyzes its victims, killing them within an hour, which has ahead the shape of a coffin in a mouth blacker than the chimney of a kerosene lantern struck my mother twice. And trying to get away from this snake, she fell into the nameless river that runs through the sanctuary and the river spat her out at its frothy mouth where it feeds the swamp. That's more or less what father had told me. The rest I'd read in his big book of snakes on snakes of East Africa. Our dad are always with us. Kaka is saying now, there's a hint of suppressed anger in her voice. You must remember this. Why is it impossible for you to believe in a world whose existence you can't explain? You're smart enough to know that just because you can't see something, that doesn't mean it's not there. A sort of electric hush charged with the loud singing of crickets sits between us. In the distance it creates, I probe the walls of Kaka's theory of death, walls that are warped and distorted and never hold up, whenever subjected to reason. But I suppose gods don't listen to reason. I suppose gods go about doing whatever they want, even if it means leaving a trail of orphaned children and childless mothers. She just materializes on the foot of my bed like an image from a projector. Kaka says, it takes me a moment to realize she's talking about mother's spirit. Except it's obviously not just an image because she tidies up in my room. She walks around picking up my tunics from the floor, folding them and putting them away in my wardrobe. Now she talks to me too, Kaka says, it's kind of a wordless communication like the hum of a forest. It took me a while to understand it, but now I do. I want to ask her what else mother has told her, but I don't. If she wants to, she will tell me unbidden. And after a moment's silence, she does. Kaka wants me to know that mother's spirit has promised to escort me over to the, or her over to the other side very soon. She wants me to be prepared for this possibility. I am not to worry. She warns, and I'm not to cry. This is the ending she desires. It's what she's always hoped for. I should want it for her. Will you come back and visit me? I say all of my sensible questions having deserted me. When mother takes you, will you come back to me? Never. I'm not to cry. I'm not to cry. I'm not to cry. I am not to cry. I'm not to cry. I will stop there. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Irene. Thank you, Irene and Doreen for those extremely powerful excerpts. I am going to read just from the first few pages of my story. the thick end of his tie through the loop, but the knot unraveled in his hands. He tried again, and again he failed. Did he really need the tie? He guessed it would probably be easier to persuade the guards at the Sheraton to let him in with one, and even then. But he couldn't work out the steps, so Gaitu put the necktie in his pocket and decided to try his luck without it. Sitting at the edge of his mattress, he waited for the hour to pass. He didn't want to arrive too early, too eager. His mattress was on the floor in the corner, and it was covered with all of his clothes, which earlier that evening he had tried on, considered, ruled out, reconsidered, tossed aside before choosing a blue shirt stained under the arms, but he'd concealed the stain with his jacket and black pants. Until that day, Gaitu thought this was an adequate wardrobe, fairly nice for a street sweeper, but he had noticed even his best pants were worn at the hem, so he brought them to his mother. She was busy chopping onions and her red hands and tearful eyes gave Gaitu pause. He didn't want to add to her burden, but he needed her help. Mama, he said, and she immediately responded later and walked right past him to the garden to pick some hot peppers. He thumbed the rebellious threads that seemed to be disintegrating in his fingers. Please, mama, this stitching is coming apart. She didn't look up from her vegetable garden, so he pressed on. I need to look nice for Mr. Jeff's farewell party. Ah, Mr. Jeff, she turned to face Gaitu and would have thrown up her hands except for the peppers resting on her lifted apron. Again with Mr. Jeff, she groaned. I have to see him. It's his last night in Addis Ababa and he's been so good to me, Gaitu explained, following his mother back to the kitchen. She called over her shoulder. Has he been good to you? What has Mr. Jeff actually done for you? Gaitu hesitated then said, Mr. Jeff told me he has something for me. He'd have said more, but she was barely paying attention to him, focused on wiping off the peppers on her apron, splitting them in half and taking out all of the seeds. Mama, he said, I heard you. It's just what is it you imagine he has for you? Gaitu didn't dare honestly answer that question. His mother's ridicule primed for the slightest provocation. Ever since Jeff Johnson invited him to the party, Gaitu couldn't stop himself from guessing what the something might be. Over their months of friendship, Jeff Johnson had told Gaitu how important Gaitu was to him, how his organization could use a young man like Gaitu, what a brilliant keen head Gaitu had on his shoulders. Gaitu's hopes had soared. As he pictured the good job, he'd surely be offered. In this moment, he nearly told his mother about the new, stable life he'd imagined, the freedom from worry that would be so liberating now that the government seizures of land was creeping closer neighborhood by neighborhood. Even the Tedloos had lost their home just a month ago, and they only lived five blocks away. But Gaitu simply replied, I just want to say goodbye to Mr. Jeff. Gaitu, if this Mr. Jeff really wants you at his party, he won't care what you wear. But mama, it's at the Sheraton, Gaitu whispered. At the Sheraton, did you say? She turned and stared at him with raised eyebrows and a sorry look in her eyes. It's at the Sheraton. Her tone started high, then fell with Gaitu's spirits. Do you really think this man wants you there at the Sheraton? He invited you to a party at the Sheraton? Only a man who has spent every day here having his shoes licked and every door flung open would be so unaware as to invite a boy like you to the Sheraton. To the Sheraton, who is this Mr. Jeff? Gaitu didn't have the courage to reply, so she continued. Let me tell you, he comes as chauffeur to one international office after another. And at the end of the night, he goes to the fancy clubs on Bowie Road, feast, drinks, passes out, wakes up, then calls his chauffeur, who slept lightly with his phone placed right by his head and with the ringer turned up high, so as not to miss a call from the likes of Mr. Jeff and disappoint the likes of Mr. Jeff. And then one day, this Mr. Jeff invites my boy to a party at the Sheraton. At the Sheraton, they'll never let you in, of course. The Sheraton? Oh, I could go on about this, Mr. Jeff. And I think I'll stop there. Thank you so much to the three of you. Really powerful, except so I'm going to ask each of you. You can pick one other person. What about their story you liked? And then we'll take it from there. I'll start with you, Meron. Who's story pick? Pick one. Yeah. I mean, I loved them both. And for different reasons, I loved, I'll say I thought Doreen had the best setting I've ever encountered in a short story. But to answer your question directly, I just remember reading, I read story and how a loss is folded in a loss. The loss of her grandmother is folded into the loss of her home and how even identities themselves are folded into each other. They harry it in the name of her grandmother. It's the name of the granddaughter. The grandmother sees the daughter and the granddaughter. There's so much folding in and so much unwrapping that happens when there is a loss that it really made me, it made the ending very powerful. I don't want to give anything away. But the way that grieving unfolded in this story to me really tied into the way that identity and self and loss was explored. Thank you. Great answer. Irene. Thank you so much, Meron, for that very insightful interpretation of the story. It's wonderful when you come to these things and people say brilliant things about the story that you hadn't seen before even in writing it. So it's really wonderful. And I wanted to say, I guess, starting with Meron's story, just how I feel that Gaitu's mother resembles the kaka in this story, the grandmother, who is sort of jaded with this whole Jeff, Mr. Jeff character who just swoops in and has his own agenda. But Gaitu is just hopeful. He thinks that something good will come of it. He'll go to the Sheraton and I feel without giving anything away that in the end he learns something. He learns how the game is played and perhaps he will come away with something that helps him and his mother. One hopes. And regarding Lucky, Doreen's story, I just really love how descriptive it is. And it just makes you think of the violent history of Uganda and how it's passed down generations. He's practically this little boy learning from an older gentleman how to love the gun, how to wield it properly and how to make it a part of your life. I also like how this story brings back a character that I grew up hearing about Alice Lacuena and the Holy Spirit movement before it got taken over by Connie who now everybody knows all over the world but nobody knows who Alice Lacuena is because she was a woman and perhaps her movement didn't last as long as Connie's did. But it's just really important that no matter how good or how bad she was that she gets her place in history too and I loved that element to see that in Doreen's story. Wonderful. Doreen? It's really, really hard to choose one. I'm going to cheat and say both of those stories resonated so powerfully for me for the shortlisted stories because they really showed what story is about. We hear about these big issues like displacement, like what it's like living in the diaspora or class differences in our cities. But when they are put in story, they have such a visceral impact on the reader. So I really loved how Meron explored, you know, the class differences especially between expatriates and the locals in any African city, perhaps any third world city. And the expatriate can be very well-meaning and very nice but still he has this power, economic and social, that this street sweep is really trying to reach to and can't quite get to. So powerfully done. And of course, I lived in the States for 15 years so I too faced that, I think it's a kind of dissonance where your real life, your real life is where you are physically but there's another real life where your memory is, where the people closest to you are and that distance between, it's also being schizophrenic, I'm not saying you are but you know there's a distance between where your mind is and your emotions and your feelings and the people you love and your community and then where you are creating a new community but which is brought out so acutely when someone dies. It just brings all these issues out in stuck color. I could go on and on. Thank you so much. Well, one of the reasons I'm so pleased to be moderating this conversation is that I love short stories. They are my favorite genre. Poems are also very close to my heart and you know people go oh, the story ended. I want more. I always get offended. Like you want more. It's a short story and it's a complete thing in and of itself. For me, what I've recognized that, what draws me, what makes for me the best stories, the sweetness, I always go with the sweetness of a story is the atmosphere. And I think the three of you, not that I think, I know the three of you in your stories, excellent atmosphere. So I want to talk about, I'm going to weave it in about writing the short story form. But Doreen, for you, the atmosphere, you know, you do, you did a story within a story. Right? So you covered Muziz's story within the larger story and that was amazing to me because you were telling that story. Muziz's thing about the war, while the boys were and their teacher were in a very tense moment. So it's like you took us away and we came back and that atmosphere was brilliant. I love that. The other thing is I love when I can connect one African story to another story. I like, I like it, it just brings me joy. And the atmosphere again, it reminded me immediately of Lily Mabura, the Kenyan writer. She also had, in fact, I think it's not that I think it was shortlisted for the cane. How shall we kill the bishop? Again, a story set in northern Kenya during war. And you know, there's violence, you know, it's in a war region. So you know, violence is coming. And then when it comes, it's like, you're shocked. Why are you shocked? That's the story, you know. So I want you to talk a little bit about how you handle the atmosphere and the violence around the corner. Oh, that's a very, that's a very, very big question. Like you, I love short stories. I do love short stories. I think that there's an artistry to a short story. And Noho too, but Noho is a whole different, I've been working on Noho for many years and it's a whole different ballgame in terms of the different things that you're juggling at the same time. With the story, you'll give it time to sort of frame it in something small, you know, short and sweet and then make it as powerful and impactful as you can in there. I wanted the story within the story because I was talking about generational differences and what one generation passes down to another. And so this boy, then this war and what's happening to him didn't come out of nowhere. It wasn't that shock and surprise. It was because of what had been happening before. So how best to bring it in? We may perhaps be forgetting the storytelling tradition from, you know, grandmothers around the fire, but it still happens with characters like Muze who sit around in town and nobody's interested in them, but they've got this wisdom. They've got the country's history in them. And I thought it would be neat to have that, oh, there are so many stories in life, aren't there? They are linked and they are entwined with each other. And I think that being able to do that in a short story, because that's what real life is like really, is what I was aiming for. I haven't read the Kenyan writer's story, unfortunately. Yes. Now I'm going to go look for it. Thank you very much. Irene, when I read, okay, so let me give, let me tell a little story of my own. My godfather was Kenyan and when he passed away, I was in New York and we, you know, he'd been sick. So, you know, sort of like we'd been expecting it. But for the months after, and I mean, I'm not a religious person. I do not, if you told me you saw a ghost, I would be like whatever. But one day I was sitting in my living room. I think I used to watch teletubbies before I went to work to calm me down. So I was sitting there eating breakfast, watching teletubbies, and out of the corner of my eye, I see something, you know, so I, and I'm the only one in the apartment at the time. My roommate has left and I looked to the right and there is a chair, sort of, at the same level with the TV. So I just turned my head and sitting in the chair is my godfather. So I just sort of like looked and continued watching teletubbies and the image went away. Over the coming days and weeks, I would be walking on Broadway by myself, going to meet friends, and my godfather would be working with me. I remember I told my mother, actually was like, oh, wow, don't you want to go and see someone as you see a shrink? I said, no, I find it very comforting, you know, and sometimes I would throw a word like, oh, you are here. I'll be in the kitchen and you would appear. And he was a great cook, so I'll be like, well, I'm making some curry chicken. And he, he, there was a time was like every day. Then it was like once a week and gradually he went away. And it was an amazing grieving experience. I mean, I'm not going to say whether it was my imagination or what all I knew is that it happened to me and I was grateful because it was like he wasn't God. So when Kaka was talking about that, right, to Harriet, I was like, wow, this is, it resonated with me so much and I want you to talk. And for me, that was the atmosphere. Once the grandmother started to talk about that, I was like, this is going to happen. I am anticipating this thing happening. I'm looking forward to it. It brings comfort. Because she herself was so bewildered, you know, when, when Meron talks about grief upon grief, she's been bewildered by her mother's death. And then, you know, she was supposed to go and see her grandmother in three months time. So another death has come. So for me, that was, there was a lot, there is a lot, but the atmosphere of building up to the comfort, the comforting presence was what I loved. I loved it. So please talk a little bit about what inspired you to do that. Thank you. Right. I am so sorry to hear about the death of your Godfather. That's difficult. It's difficult to lose someone when they're far away. I mean, it's difficult to lose someone anyway, but when they're really removed from you in that sense, it does something to the grieving process. And this is saying in my language about how grief makes anyone a stranger to themselves. And indeed, something like that happened to me too. When my grandmother passed away and I was here in Canada, I was going to university studying journalism, I couldn't just pick up and go for the funeral. It's just really expensive. And I remember after my sister sent me the text message and after my family had kind of cried with me and they left the room and it was just me in the bedroom. And I sat down and I was facing the wall and I felt a hand on my shoulder. And I'm like, I'm like Harriet, I really do not believe that the dead can, you know, emerge from beyond the grave and touch you physically, just physically. I don't believe that, but I did feel that hand and whatever it was, it had a calming presence on me. And I felt like perhaps it was my grandmother. She has this really, she had a really bright sense of humor. I thought she was saying, what did you think? I mean, I'm a hundred years old, do you think I was going to be here forever? So it was, it really lifted my spirits enough, you know, for me for this to be the seed for this story. And unlike you, I didn't see the end coming. I didn't think that Harriet was, that the walls of her belief, her belief were permeable enough to allow for the unknowable to come through into her consciousness. But again, you know, grief makes us strangers to ourselves. So I was really surprised at the end when she, she was open to whatever was possible. That was, it made me happy. It made me writing that story believe and, you know, accept the fact that you can never be confident about what you know in this, in this world, because you can't know everything. So you have, I mean, a world that has no conflict, that has no doubts, it's not a believable world. And we all, everybody has beliefs that we hold that are not based in reason, that don't make sense, but they are part of our world. So that's the lesson that I learned from writing this story, not to be too confident about what I think I know. I don't know if I answered your question. I feel like I went down a tunnel. You did, you did, you did. Meron, that suspense you built up for, is it going to happen for G2? Is it not going to happen? It was, you know, when, when we get to, when you get to the, that pivotal scene between him and Jeff Johnson, and they are both apologizing to each other, like I couldn't read, I'm a wimp. When the characters are like, I'm going through hardships, I have to put this aside. I'm like, I don't want to read this, even though we are all cynical and we know how the world works. So it doesn't come as a surprise, but when you get there, I'm like, oh no, so there is, there is that part of suspense for me in the atmosphere. The other thing is, I'm going to, this, this would be like TMI. Let's talk about an African city. There aren't enough sanitation, free public toilets, or even public toilets in Accra, right? Whatever you hear about Ghana, it's all a lie. So what I do is, what I do is that I have a list of hotels and where they are, I keep the map in my head, so that when I, when I leave my house and I'm in town, and I need to use the facilities, I can just dash in and dash out, right? I don't give it a single thought. And as I kept doing this, I realized that the ability and the freedom I have the ease to step into any who, any, and a lot of them will be the high, the high end hotels was also tied to English. Like, you know, if I, if they, they won't stress of all, they won't stop me, because when I enter the, when as I'm entering the lobby, we all know how to carry ourselves. You carry yourself with like, I belong here. The attendant isn't going to ask me a question. Should he ask me a question? I will respond in my very strong English. You'll be like, okay, madam. All right. So I've been so aware that this doesn't happen to the majority of Ghanians, even, even a private hospital, they bar their doors to ordinary people who may need to just come in and use the facilities. So when J2 was like, the mother was like, share it and I was like, oh Lord, how are we going to get through today? Because I understood what's the mother. I mean, he himself, he's a brave young man, of course. And he, he, he belongs more than he thinks he doesn't belong. He gets over his imposter syndrome very quickly. But I appreciated that whole angle you took about, well, not everybody can just get up and enter any building in an African, in an African city. Something, something like a hotel that is open to everybody. So again, now I'm coming back to growing up and you can comment on that. But the specific question also in the atmosphere has to do with the growth trajectory of J2 in the span of the story. Thank you. And thank you for that question. I think that is, it's such an important question. And the, and also thank you for saying those words about the suspense. I really, you know, it starts out with him just trying to figure out how to put on a tie, thinking, okay, maybe this is the, maybe this is the thing I need. Maybe this is the way that I find access. And he has an invitation and, you know, he has all, you know, he, he has a urgent mission. He needs to, he needs to really turn his life around. And his home is under threat. He, you know, his, it's an ancestral home. It's, you know, he has, he has a lot riding on this one night. And this one party that he's trying to get, that he's trying to get to and absolutely his mother, you know, she, she's given up hope and she's very jaded about his ability to find access. But at the same time, she, she helps him. She, she does what he asks. So I feel like there's this feeling and I hope it gets conveyed in the story as well that, you know, maybe, maybe we don't really know what he's capable of. I wanted to leave that possibility open, even though, you know, it seems unlikely and he is literally an uphill climb, you know, that that is still possible. And there is a lot of growth that happens, especially in the span of him reaching the gates and the doors. And, you know, he's a street sweeper and he has a lot of, he's an observer, you know, he's seen the city and you, you kind of imagine that in the years and days and months and weeks leading up to this moment, he's taken in something. And now we're seeing, you know, that growth and his, his real lessons accelerated and now he has to figure out, you know, how can he navigate this space, this new world, this, as you're saying, this kind of altered atmosphere to really take the reins of his life and see if he can find agency in that moment. And by the way, that exchange where they're both apologizing to each other is extremely difficult to write to and maybe some of the emotion of writing it came through in the reading. You did that wonderfully. So thank you so much. Thank you for your first, your responses. One of the hallmarks of African literature like, you know, it should pitch up in maybe 90% of stories. It's intergenerational conversation. It's like a hallmark. It's like, we do this very well. Doesn't matter how many times it comes up in African literature. Every time you come across it, it's lovely. It's like it has to be there. Otherwise, it's in Africa. It doesn't matter what it is, right? So, and all three of you have that. And oh, by the way, let me drop this in. Myron, your story reminded me a lot of GIFTS by Nuridin Farah. It also has the NGO issues and exploitation. So that's that. So let's get back to the intergenerational story. So then all of you cover that, Doreen, with Mzi and the boy, Irene, the grandmother and Harriet and Myron G2's mother. Are you aware, I will throw this first to Irene, are you aware when you are doing it, that you are doing something very African or this is just that's how it came to you as a story? Not sure. The intergenerational conversation, yes. Right. I'm not sure if I knew while writing the story that this was an important aspect of it. But I have a feeling, too, that most of the stories that I like, that I enjoy are ones that speak across generations. And I grew up in the or I grew up in rural Uganda where there's no electricity and no television. So all the stories that I would my introduction to storytelling would have involved such stories that are passed down from generation to generation, around the fire or around the well, around the playground at school. These would be the sorts of stories that I would have heard. So it doesn't surprise me that it's also a theme that is carried through in my own stories because that's where I learned to tell stories. And I would hope that as time goes by and I become a more prolific writer, that my stories will not be uniform, that perhaps there would be there would be difference enough to provide a variety. But I do like the intergenerational aspect either way. Yeah. Thank you very much. Doreen, for you, it was a conversation, the stories of between Zee and the boy. And of course, I mean, I always say that literacy and storytelling in African villages fantastic because the old folks, I wasn't aware that it was that it's sort of a trope in in African writing. I always hesitate to say whether something is so African or not, because I think wherever there is family, there's going to have these connections, generation to generation. So I really need to do more to, I guess, study African history to see how prevalent it is. I wanted to do it because I wanted not only between Muzay, Muzay is a Kiswahili word for sort of an honorary title for someone if you don't want to use their name, you call them Muzay and we call our president Muzay. And I was also interested in the conversation between cool boys and the teacher, Koma Ketch, Koma who also passes on. Oops, spoiler. But I really wanted to highlight that difference also between the much younger children and those who are supposed to be in the therapy who are the next generation, because I have a 13 year old son and he and it's very clear he thinks most times teachers and such figures of authority are usually, I don't know, I'm not telling you the honest truth. There's a word for each which I don't have to say on this on this, but I think I don't see it begins with B. So most people are aware, most kids are aware, they are much smarter than they are taken for that teachers tell them things like, you know, you're very lucky to be here when they know they're actually stuck in school. So I wanted that sort of irreverence or between the boy and how he's so annoyed by what the older person who is supposed to be wise and no better, but in fact does it. So that's really what I was aiming for. I'm glad it fits into the larger, is it called a trope? I don't want to use this stuff. Yes. Thank you so much. By the way, my 14 year old does, he comes and he's just going, you know, like this, particularly he's dissing his teachers and half of the time I wonder, I ask him, but how are you going to be listening to your teachers when you don't trust them so much? I worry and he just rolls his eyes at me like, mommy, I'll still learn the content, but you know, it's, I don't know whether it's a teenage thing, but I suppose in our environment, it's very healthy to have a kind of skeptical view of adults. So I think, I think it's healthy. Yeah. Thank you very much for your response. Meron, J2's mother talk about brutal honesty and her words and what she says is even when he leaves home and he goes to the sheriff's and to meet Jeff Johnson, like he has his mother's words running through his head all the time. And so can you talk about the mother and him, the conversation? Absolutely. I mean, so, you know, I feel like she has, she gives, she does out tough love, you know, it's, it comes from a place of protectiveness and it's her hard earned wisdom. And the section, you know, after what I read in the beginning kind of summarizes her worldview that's developed over the years and how she's kind of come to see the situation that Gaitu is placing all of us open. And, you know, at first I want the story to feel, you know, he's, it's a departure, you know, he's setting out on his own and he kind of has to learn those lessons for himself or whatever lessons he's going to come to. But as the story progresses, I don't want to give away too much, but I'll say that as the story progresses, we see how influential her learning really has been and how it's really nuanced the way that he not only interacts with Jeff, but also how he kind of comes to position himself and try to achieve what it is that he's after. And so she's, you know, so it's both, it's supposed to show a contrast, but also to show how he's, he's come to a more nuanced position in this, in this setting and this one kind of, kind of climactic moments of the story. Thank you very much. Thank you. So I wanted us to discuss a bit about displacement and dislocation. And Irene, in your story, of course, Harriet has already left home and is in Canada and is a new immigrant. And Ben her grandmother dies and there's that further displacement and dislocation emotionally. And even, you know, when someone close to you dies, it's like you're very on mode, even in, you know, like once his home, home has changed, her grandmother isn't there, right? And so can you talk a bit about it because I don't want to give too much away. But at the end, you know, there's a separation and it looks like there's a connection. So please talk about displacement, dislocation and immigrant experience in your work. Right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Personally, I'm not, as myself as the writer, I'm not very patriotic about citizenship. But I also understand that I say this as a Ugandan living in Canada. So there's a privilege there. That said, it's also, I like to say that I live in a hyphen, so that Ugandan, Canadian, that little hyphen in between is where I exist. It's where I live as a mother, as a writer, and it's a marginal place. There's a bit of privilege as a writer because I straddle two worlds. And so it's a wonderful place to write from because I have sort of a bird's eye view. I have an insider, outsider perspective when I write about Uganda, which is what often I write about. But I write about Uganda and publish in Canada. So there's also that degree of removal about who am I writing the stories for. So it's a strange thing about being an immigrant is because your idea of home changes radically. And the journey does not end when you move from Uganda and come to Canada and arrive in land. It doesn't stop there. It continues. And it continues to shape you and change you in ways you can never, that will never stop. And so for me then, home is a complicated amalgam of Uganda and everything that it imbued me with the people, the places, everybody that I love that's still there. And Canada, which is where I became a writer, where I became a mother, where I, though I spent my formative years in Uganda, continued to be formed when I arrived in Canada. So home for me, I guess that's why I don't form huge attachments to what is essentially being a Uganda, what is essentially being Canadian. I just, for me, it's the people. It's the people. It's the places that, and then the struggle I suppose becomes that when I write about Uganda, perhaps the danger is that I write from a place of nostalgia. And maybe I risk presenting a view that's romantic, I suppose, because I remember only what I love. And so I might write about it in glowing terms. But in fact, it's a country that is growing, that's full of political rife, that's this political instability and the economic status. It's always in a state of flux and a lot of corruption. And some of those things I'm happy to be away from. I can say that with honesty. At the same time, it is also where the people I love and long for are. So I think that's the position of every immigrant. Wherever you go, however successful you become, there's a way of life that you have lost that you can never get back. And so you're constantly feeling placeless and uprooted. And yeah, that's, I don't know, it's a difficult place to inhabit. Thank you very much for the response. Doreen, of course, the boys also experience a version of displacement, this location because school is the boarding school, the holidays are here. And they are unable to leave because there's war in their way. And they cannot, you know how, you know, some of the myths we have about African culture is that we all have sprawling extended family. And therefore, why, you know, it's like, if that's true, 10 of the boys wouldn't be stuck there because, you know, we have family everywhere. We are so extended, which we know that is not the case. You know, it's not the case, you know. So the boys are, you know, they are displaced, they can't go home. And they can't go home to where their families are. And they have, they don't have extended family or they don't know where they are in Kampala. And so they experience this displacement in their, in the state of affairs that is not familiar to them. Because the boarding school in the holidays, that is not your home. You know, the whole setup is not usual. Can you talk a bit about that? Yeah, you put it perfectly. I don't even know what to add. It's not their home. They've been displaced. And, you know, to continue with what Irene said, I do really relate to what you're saying, Irene, because I live in the US for 15 years. So that in between place. But then what I realize is that a lot of the, a lot of the issue or the feeling in between is because we assume home is supposed to be one place. You know, home is supposed to be physically one place that you know, or one place you're connected to ethnically. And in real life, you know, it's not true. So really the battle is between what you think it's supposed to be and what the reality is. It's not just looking at the reality and like, I mean, I know it's not easy. I know it's not easy. And I moved when I was older. I had finished university and I didn't get kids there because I think that also encourages you more. But displacement, yes, I was very, very conscious of that choice being abandoned at school and everybody lives you there. So you're in your own country and yet your own country, or you're in your own, you know, it's like exiled and being exiled in your own home. It's like a paradox, right? It doesn't work. But I feel many of us do feel that way, even when we are physically in our homes, because a country is supposed to be the homeland, right? This is whole concept of the homeland. But in actual fact, whose home is it? And sometimes that's what all these wars, that's why they're all these wars because of some people who feel they have more of a right to call it home as citizens than others. Or they feel we can only be properly citizens if another group is destroyed. And I'm very conscious right now what's happening in Ethiopia and my heart goes out to what's happening in Tigray. So I feel sometimes the boarding school is like a microcosm of the larger real world with all these issues and they try to recreate a home by foraging for food, by staying in the dorm together. But even that is destabilized by what happens by the war coming to their home. So it seems like it's not a safe space. It's not a safe space. And gosh, I don't know how to talk about this without giving spoilers, but I feel like the very last scene he's trying in some way to send Koba home or to make him feel at home as well. You're not tucking him in, you know. Thank you. Great. That's great. Maroon, of course, G2, his mother, they are facing an impending dislocation. The government is ticking. By the way, did that actually happen? Do they say buildings without a fall floor? Like, is that the case? And you're muted. You're muted. I didn't put a date in the story because I wanted it to because there have been various decrees over, you know, like, I want it to be more about like the this kind of these forces, these like kind of big powers that be that are whimsical and arbitrary. So there have been decrees like that. And that's, you know, but I want the characters to feel like they're kind of caught in someone else's story until we get to the point where G2 tries to take the reins of the story and write his own ending. Much. So all your stories deal with loss, you know, in different in different ways. So I'm going to ask each of you to talk about, in particular, is this a theme that you're drawn to loss, grieving? Why the subject matter? And we can take that further. So I'll start with Irene. Thank you, Kena. I did not set out to consciously write about loss. I suppose that theme emerged in service to the story, the nature of the story. It's about loss. So it's, you know, it's written on every page of that story loss. But I also suppose that as an immigrant myself, and I wrote that story during a period of my life where my post-graduation work permit had expired, but I was allowed to stay in the country, though I couldn't work because I didn't have legitimate status to work. I had given up my journalism job. So those were the thoughts that were running through my head at that moment, too. So I'm not surprised that loss figures largely because I was contemplating what would happen, you know, if my application for permanent residency was not approved. During that, I didn't know how long it would take before I even got an answer. So loss, yes. It's a big theme in my stories so far. But again, I hope that I'll find different things to write about so that I'm not always writing about the same thing. You know, we are in such a season of loss, you know. So I appreciated the motifs, you know. I always used to say, you know, I used to say that, oh, as long as something bad happens and it happens to everybody at the same time, then I will feel better. That's such a huge lie. Then COVID came and I'm like, no, no, it doesn't really matter, you know, because whether you know the people or not, you know, I've had to, I've been watching, you know, I've lost people I know from COVID. And then there's the usual loss that is happening because the other, you know, the people don't stop dying because other people are dying from a pandemic, you know. And then I watch as people I know and love in other countries repeatedly put up pictures and are grieving. So it's been such a, and we are still in the midst of it. And that's just, you know, so thank you for your stories. Doreen, loss. I'm speechless in a way, the loss in a separation, you know, old people die. We, you know, we grieve them, we miss them, but yeah, they, you know, that's how it's supposed to happen. And when it happens, it devastates us nonetheless. But the loss in your story, and again, how it just happened, you know, it's like, you know, I had to go back and like, what, you know, especially, you know, and now when the soldiers come the way they react. So I, it was shocking and infuriating because, you know, they just left the kids there to deal with whatever I don't want to give it away. So talk a bit about that. Thank you. Yeah. You know, I think it's very hard to write a story that doesn't deal with something that is all joy, happiness, and flowers, and beauty from the beginning of the story to the end. You know, when you're teaching, there has to be a central conflict. And always my students are like, why conflict? But there has to be something, some friction or somebody wants something or, you know, and loss is one of those things that you can't explore forever and never get to the bottom of it. Just keep trying in once and once and once to get even for something like, you know, like Irene's story, an old person dying. For some reason, it is a fact of life, but it's something that we cannot accept. It is so, so hard to accept. Yeah. When I wrote that, I wrote the first draft a long, long time ago, I was thinking of the past, you know, I wrote it not a long, long time ago, but I wrote it about maybe four years ago. I've really been writing this, it's an excerpt of a novel, and I've been writing this novel for quite a long time. So I was not really thinking about the current situation at that time. I was thinking about what happened in 1986, 87. But in a way, it does resonate in terms of, with war, there's no way you can fight a war without loss. So on somebody's side, somebody's victory is somebody else's loss. Unfortunately, that is what war is. Is it worth paying that price? I myself am a pacifist, but there we go. My issue then was then how to deal with it when it's these young people who are facing it, 13, 14, without not knowing how to grieve, you know, having at that point to create rituals for grieving, having to figure it out on their own. And I don't know if it's, maybe it's a great equalizer, it humanizes us, you know. And it's just interesting to explore my main issue craft-wise is not to fall into sentimentality, not to become, you know, modeling, but the word, but to keep it sharp and fresh and yet let the reader also mourn as the characters are mourning. So that was my challenge, how to do it and yet keep it real without it becoming so sappy. I hope I did. When you said keep it sharp and real, I remembered in Irene's story when Harriet's dad calls and, you know, and he's direct and Irene writes that, you know, it's like a machete, you know, because that's how I deliver this news. I don't say I used to think down how are you today, you know, I would just pick up the phone and tell the person who so-and-so has died. Other people they, you know what you're going to do about death, announcement and all that, it just has to be said. So thank you to the two of you. Maren, of course, the last motif in your story is unexpected. You know, you know, we know G2 is going for a meeting, he has expectations, he has this whole life mapped out with the hope and everything. Of course, for him, it's about the hope. But again, I come back to that conversation with Jeff. You know, once you write in this, he starts apologizing. He says, I'm sorry. And so you know something is happening, like why is he the one apologizing? And you have that little line there that says, but isn't a door left side jar or something? Yeah. So can you talk about it? That's how it all connected for me. What happens at the end? So can you talk about G2's journey and his particular experience of loss? Absolutely. I mean, I'd say the kind of urgency in the story and the narrative driver is this threat of loss. You know, the loss that's kind of briefing, you know, block by block neighborhood by neighborhood, it's kind of coming close. And as he kind of journeys to Sheraton to try to try to turn his luck around, we also see that he's going through these vacant streets. And that kind of keeps reminding him of this loss that's happening collectively. That's really where the threat and the drive comes for him. So that's there. But as you're saying, as the story progresses, his emotional journey also progresses. So he kind of starts out in this much more hopeful and idealistic position. And then we see, I wouldn't say that there's, I wouldn't say, well, I don't know, I'll actually leave it to a reader to interpret. But I'd ask if you think there's a loss of innocence at the end, or if there's a loss of a certain kind of expectation. I think that he, or if you read the story as a hopeful one, or a sad one, or if you were to read the story a second time, if you would see him differently, and what his journey has been, because I, he does lose something at the end. I don't really want to define it, because I think you could look at it in several ways. But I think he also grows and has a, he does have, he does come away with not maybe not what he expected, but he doesn't leave empty-handed, literally. No, no, no, he doesn't. And I think I loved, whatever he lost, I was happy he lost it. Because there is something about being in, in, in, in that section, when he goes to meet Ms. Jeff Johnson, and he's in the room with all these people who are working for all these agencies. And I think he looks at them and he's like, well, I can carry a conversation that I could do. You know what I mean? So for me, I loved, I mean, he lost something, but it was, it was good he lost it. Yeah, it was good. That's how I look at it. So thank you. Thank you so much. You talked about, Maren talked about emotion. And so I want to talk about a little bit about the emotional vein of your stories. Doreen, you, by the way, in your story, you are, you, you invite a lot of reader participation with the questions and the proverbs, right? When, when, when the teacher, Kuma is always like the early bird that's worse. And it's the only time I would tolerate that. So, you know, in, in, in Accra, you, you'll be having a conversation with somebody. And the person we do call and response, it will just be the two of you. They are telling you a story and they're like, then what did I do? I don't know. And then what did I do? What happened next? I don't know. Tell me what happened next. But in the story, I love that, you know, because you were completing sentences. So here we are, you know, ostensibly should be a very somber story. But of course, the kids, they live very much in the moment. And, you know, they are, they are having this converse, you know, this thing with their teacher. So it was unexpected for when, from your first line, the emotion, we'll go through some emotions in the story. So can you talk about that different levels? Thank you. Yeah, I like what you said about the audience participation. It's part of, part of public speaking. You engage your audience by asking them questions so that they participate in creating the story and suspense. But it's also, I think it's very true that most kids have something, they have a way that they tease or they laugh about figures of authority among themselves, you know, make them into comic figures. It's the only way to have power over the power that the teachers have by mocking them out of their presence when they are not with them. And I knew that this is going to be a very heavy story. It's set in a worst situation. And I didn't want people to just feel so sad and wait down. And there has to be a way for readers to get in and engage with the material. And humor is really one way to do that. It's that when you find yourself, especially the shock of if you find yourself, like whenever I wrote that line of Mosaic saying, yeah, I don't kill birds, I kill people. And it's a horrific thing, but it's also funny. And what is it about something that is and always, they always wait for him to actually kill the bird and then he actually does it, killed the bird every time, which shows a kind of empathy on his side, you know, he doesn't really want to kill the birds, but he has an excuse that he's better than that. I think that humor is something that I feel just makes something very, very heavy, a little bit light, and it's a way in. And it was also for them a coping mechanism, a coping mechanism for anyone who is going through very traumatic situations. So I thought that would help the story move forward. Thank you very much, Irene. How about the emotional vein? I have my own opinion about that, but I'll let you talk about it. Yeah. Did you want me to talk about the emotion of the vein of humor? I have no humor at all in my story. No, you don't. But what were you thinking? Because let me just say, I found your story confusing. There was something about her grandmother say essentially what the grandmother was saying is that no matter what comes down the pike, we are going to be okay. I don't know if that's what you intended, that's what I picked up. Right. Yes, I think so. I think that because there's a sense of mysticism throughout the story, it just would seem to me after reading it, because this story was published back in 2018. So I've actually been rediscovering it now. I haven't read it in a while, but now that I've been reading it and reading from it to people, it seems to me that perhaps the grandmother knew that she has this view that she's raised Harriet. She's 30 years old now and she feels accomplished that she's done her job and she's raised a strong woman who is intelligent and she's taught her everything she could ever could. And she actually earlier on in the story says, I know that you're going to have a good time in Canada pretty much, that you're going to acquire a world of wisdom. So for her, even though Harriet was looking forward to going back home for Christmas, perhaps the grandmother knew that whether that happened or not, Harriet would be okay. And in a way she encounters people, strangers who are immigrants as well. And she makes a connection almost immediately. And on the day of her grandmother's death that she is not, you could read it as though it were not a coincidence that perhaps there was a hand of her grandmother guiding her to, to these people who are kind strangers. And when you are in a new place trying to find your way around, you know, moving timidly through it as most immigrants would do, it's always comforting to see other people. Perhaps it's the whole idea of misery loving company, even though you're not miserable. I mean, I will encounter immigrants on the streets if they're speaking Tagalog or if they're from Sudan and I can't communicate to them in their language. But it's just really comforting to see somebody else here who looks like me. And I know it makes me happy to see them here. And, and I might never communicate that to them, but it's comforting to know that they too are trying to navigate the same issues I probably am navigating. And I think maybe there's a, there's a comfort there too for Harriet. Thank you very much. We will be opening it up soon if I think we are the time for audience questions. So the audience can send through their questions and we will have a session of Q&A once I get the questions. Meron, was there, you know, there are, there are lots of African cities, towns in which every single building, every other building, if it's an office is an NGO. It's like a foreign NGO, big and small. What, what, talk about the inspiration for the story. That's what, that's what I wanted to ask. Well, the, it's interesting because actually the inspiration goes back to what you were saying before about that emotional name. I'm working on stories about immigrants and refugees and the spacing displacement. And it's that emotional center that, you know, these stories bubble up from. And those are the connections that I explore in the character. So that was really the starting place. You're very right about the setting. You know, when I was thinking about, and hopefully, hopefully the story resonates, has that, that emotional weight as a story that explores displacement in a, in a different kind of way. But yeah, the, this, this kind of fear of becoming a stranger in his own home is really pressing on gate to as he's, as he's seeing his neighborhood transform. And, but, you know, again, it's that, that more the broader themes of, of displacement and loss that are, you know, the emotional kind of through line, not only in the story, but in the other stories I'm working on. Thank you very much. While we wait for questions, I'll be, I'd like each one of you to even talk about who do you read? Who are your favorite writers? So who are you reading now? So I can also get a reading list. Well, actually, I got this recommendation. I went back to all our names because Irene had mentioned it in the Okay, Africa interview. And I thought after reading these two amazing women, let me go back and, and see that book anew. And so that's what I'm currently reading. And Irene, thank you for reminding me to go back to that. It's such a beautiful book, isn't it? Sorry. Irene, you know, I was, yeah, it's a wonderful book. It's one of those books that you put down and just wish to pick right back up and start again. But I actually, I just read Marin's story. I don't know from how long it is, but it's the suitcase with the woman who goes back home. Gosh, I love that story. And you know, when we were shortlisted together, I remember, I thought I have seen this name somewhere before, but I couldn't place it until recently I picked up the short, the best stories that it's in. And there your name was. And I thought, of course, I knew I'd encountered it before. It's a beautiful story about a woman who goes back home after a while. And is it Addis Ababa too? Yes. And she cannot cross the street. It's just so hard. And I remember having this similar experience after I left Ruro Uganda and came to the city in Kampala. I would stand at the crosswalk for hours and hours waiting to cross. And people who knew how to do it would just like zip across. And they knew how to do this sort of sidestep and box step and navigate the traffic that never stops for you. And I remember reading that and feeling seen. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm going to look that up. Doreen, you? Yeah, that was maybe one to look for those stories. I have to look them up. I recently finished a fellow Ugandan's book, Jennifer Macumbi. Jennifer Natsuboka Macumbi. I recommend her novel to everybody. It's called First Woman in the UK, in the States. It's called A Woman is a Body of Water. I just love that book. I, just because so many, there's so many things that are familiar. But I realize that all my life I've been reading, I learned something about myself, but actually I read, I've been reading what has not been familiar. So the idea that you go to a book to find out about other people and other places. But I hadn't realized how much, but that was the default. So I hadn't realized how much of a leap I am taking or how much displacement actually just displays what is happening, even if it is the norm. When you pick up a book at just the language itself, it's like there are some people who read books and all the world of that book is the language they speak every day. You know, I mean, this point has been made before in a lot, but I just, to me, it really came such a strong feeling that, oh my God, I do so much work when I'm reading books in general. This work of the imagination, you know, which is also fun and nice to do to imagine other worlds. But there's also this lovely place where you're imagining a world that you know, re-imagining. And not only in the story being explored, in the characters, but in the language itself. And also that kind of cheeky feeling that we are going to get some of these things as Uganda and no one else will get, which is also very selfish. But I can't recommend her book more. Listen, I am such a big fan. In fact, I have to rein myself in because it's, and keep to my assignment here because all somebody has to do is mention Jennifer Makumbi and I am off. So I'm just going to say that I'm a bit, she leaves me speechless. I'm going to leave with them because you guys are my guests today. And so if you haven't read her, please go ahead and read her because that's Jennifer. Yeah, yeah. What am I reading? In fact, I'm reading Jennifer's Manchester Happen, her collection of short stories. And I read your short stories as well. I tend to always have a collection of short stories as a companion because I just love short stories so much. So that's what I'm reading. Anyway, thank you so much. Let me see, please hold on. Let me see if I have questions. If not, we'll be back. Oh yeah, we have questions. The first one is, I'm going to leave the first one first because I always have problems with general questions of African writing. We'll come back to that. Someone is asking, thank you for all the great conversation. I wondered if you could share how you delved into short stories and whether you prefer it to novel writing. How you delve into short stories and whether you prefer it to novel writing. Who's going to go first? Well, I can go. I've been writing short stories for a very long time and I can promote my collection, Tropical Fish, if you haven't read it, pick it up. Commercial break. As the moderator, I'm going to take the mic and say, please, please read it. It's fantastic. Yeah. And I just love, I think I came to writing through writing workshops and it's so much easier to to write short stories in a writing workshop. So it's because it's complete, people can read it, people can comment. And so that's where I learned how to write through short stories. But I've been working on a novel for a very long time and I know that it's more than chapters are not just short stories put together, the way they've got to find each other. And I realized and just the scope of the work, I think is a challenge for me to keep the whole thing together in my head. And it was interesting that she's an excerpt from that story that I then polished into a short story that has been shortlisted for the prize. So it makes me think that perhaps short stories are my forte. But I don't think it's something really lovely about immersing yourself in a novel. I know the first lockdown, I got into not an African writer, but Hillary Mantell's trilogy. And I could forget about COVID completely. Just go into that other world for pages and pages and pages and pages. Thank you. Irene, how did you delve into short stories and how do you like them compared to novel writing? I think I love short stories because I love a challenge. They're challenging. You tell people that you write short stories and they think, oh, that you probably punch one out in a couple of weeks. It's short. But it's very challenging to write a short story. And I suppose I wanted to write short stories because I read a lot of short stories. I'm writing a novel too. And while I do that, it's just difficult to immerse myself into another longer work. So I read short stories because it's easy to just sit with one and finish it within 30 minutes and get that sense of accomplishment and completion. And the best of short stories stay with you throughout the day. You read it and it just keeps coming back to you. And I think that's what I love about short stories. And stories in general is the sense that perhaps, you know, the solitude and the way to travel through time that you get through reading a short story, it's the only time travel you're ever going to do, really, to immerse yourself into a world. And yet that brings you in a way back to yourself too. It's like Russian dolls, you know, to be sitting in this world but also outside it, yet infolded in it. And that's the challenge of short stories. And in writing them, I also feel like you can't be too precious about your words, about language, because of how they are abbreviated. You know, every word, every sentence, it has to earn its place on the page. So you can't be precious about what you have, even if a paragraph took you forever to put together and, you know, delving into the deeper mechanics of language at the end of it. If it turns out that it doesn't serve the story, it's got to go and you can't cry about it. I think you did that really well. When I read your stories, I couldn't find anything that I would cut or add. I mean, they were just, they just were exactly what they needed to be. I really enjoy writing short stories. I feel like because of the container of the short story, it can be a little bit more of a laboratory where you can experiment with style or language. With a novel, if you kind of go off on a tangent or try something, you might really, the ripples might be uncontainable. But in a short story, I, you know, there's a sort of freedom that you get. And I really like that. And I've done, I've worked out problems in short stories and then applied it to a longer novel that I'm working on where, you know, like the stylistic issue or, you know, sometimes I'll write a story specifically to figure out, you know, how do I, how do I, I don't know, just work out as, you know, something maybe plot-wise or pacing-wise. And then, and it gives you that, it gives you that opportunity to have, like, create a different world to creatively, you know, unravel a problem and then apply it later. Thank you. One of my favorite, I love short stories, as I've said, and I like what you all have said, particularly about experimenting. There is a, there's a, she's American writer, Lydia Davis. She has short stories where it takes you an A and it's one question and somebody answers. She has short stories, full-length short stories, stories that are one-way, stories that are, like, almost blank. I mean, and each of them makes sense and I enjoy it. We are like, okay, let's move on, you know, in terms of, like, exploring what can be done with the form. It's 7.30, so unless my, my, my moderate, my other, my other bosses for the conversation, I am going to, I like that we are ending with affirming the, the form, the short story form, which is what, of course, the A.K.O. Kane Price is for, the short story form in African literature. So I want to thank Doreen, Irene, and Maron and our attentive audience. We wanted to let audience members know that the mouse, moorland writing scholarships are now open for applications. The scholarship of £18,000 aims to give writers of both fiction and non-fiction the financial freedom to complete an English language book. Applications open on 18 September, so please Google mouse, moorland writing scholarships. Visit the website to find out more about how you can submit your application. We hope you enjoyed this evening's conversation. Thanks for joining the Kane Price, the British Library, and African rights. I want to thank my guests and good luck to the three of you. I think the announcement is next Monday. And of course, we wish you all the best of luck with your writing. And I said no pressure. Whatever you produce next, we will read it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. I hope you enjoyed the discussion. Thanks again to Doreen Baingana, Meron Hadero, Irene Toshabe, and Kina Likimani for our wonderful events, wishing you all the best for the winner announcement on Monday, July 26. Once again, a reminder to please leave us your feedback via the tab on your screen if you'd like to support by donating to the British Library. You can do so on their website. And please consider joining the Royal African Society as an Arts and Culture member. This will help ensure the continuation of Africa rights. You can continue the conversation on social media with the hashtag Africa rights 2021. Join our newsletter by visiting the website www.afca rights.org to learn more about festival this year. Thank you so much. Take care. Until next time.