No Man Knows My History by Fawn M. Brodie

This in itself is radical considering the violent and bureaucratic suppression they are often faced with. Most stories, however, are gentler, subtly transporting readers to the everyday lives of queer people in Africa.

van Rooyen and 'My Dad Forgot my Name?' by Victor Lewis do employ a strategy of challenging readers' moral preconceptions. Some stories in Queer Africa 2, most prominently 'Philip' by Barbara Adair, 'Mirage of War' by S. Far from seducing the reader, they aimed at shocking her or him out of complacency. This, then, is a different strategy than that adopted by writers who popularised queer writing in the 1980's and 1990's, such as Kathy Acker or (Afrikaans short story writer) Koos Prinsloo. Their agenda is therefore political and aesthetic, undermining the idea that the two are opposed. Xaba answered that while her and Martin's project is political, they want the stories to 'seduce' the reader into being immersed in the different perspectives represented by the various stories. ISBN 978-1-92.Īt the February Lectures on Queer Life in the Global South at the University of South Africa in Pretoria in 2018, an audience member asked Makhosazana Xaba whether politics or aesthetics weighed heavier in the selection of the short stories for Queer Africa 2 (following on Queer Africa: new and collected fiction published in 2013). They fear being found out.Īnd they fear the disapproval of their 'superiors', they fear being relieved of their command, failing their commanders, and its shame and disrepute.

They fear not being the guru, the honcho, they fear not being feared. They take comfort in the pack's willingness to act like a pack and to defer to their 'leader of the pack' status.īut more than being proud, they're fearful.

They take comfort in being 'respected' and feared by the pack. They take comfort in their wolfpack status. And even if they tell themselves there's a 'higher truth', the very act of calling the truth a lie belies that they aren't prophets.Ĭhurch leaders are actually cowards. They are pharisaical authoritarian bullies. The 'brethren' and church 'officers' who carried out these excommunications of scholars are pathetic. I don't believe in God anyway but I think there should be some respect for the existence of truth. It's a travesty, it's deification, it's making God a respector-of-persons, it's un-Biblical, it's undemocratic, it's a farce, and it's a dead giveway the leaders aren't of God. The Mormon church's maxim 'it's wrong to citicize leaders of the church, even if the criticism is true', is evil.

No Man Knows My History by Fawn M. Brodie