Not for Sensitive Viewers , livre ebook

224

pages

English

Ebooks

2022

Écrit par
Elana Bregin

Publié par
Elana Bregin Wobblingearth

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Découvre YouScribe et accède à tout notre catalogue !

Je m'inscris

Découvre YouScribe et accède à tout notre catalogue !

Je m'inscris

224

pages

English

Ebooks

2022

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Elana Bregin Wobblingearth

Date de parution

25 janvier 2022

EAN13

9780639719122

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

4 Mo

Emanuel is a young refugee escaping the turmoil of conflict in his own country. Winter is a reclusive writer with painful secrets to guard. Both, for very different reasons, are outsiders in the world they inhabit. It is Winter who instigates their journey to the Antbear Cabin; realm of the secretive Antbear, denizen of the underground, who roams the nocturnal world between twilight and dawn. Elana Bregin is a fiction writer. Her books include Survival Training for Lonely Hearts, Shiva�s Dance and The Slayer of Shadows.

Voir

Publié par

Elana Bregin Wobblingearth

Date de parution

25 janvier 2022

EAN13

9780639719122

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

4 Mo

Fiction African Studies

No t f o r Se ns i tiv e V ie wer s

Not for Se nsitive Viewers Elana Bregin

P u b l i s h e d i n 2 0 2 2 b yEm a i l : e l a n a . b r e g i n @ g m a i l . c o m I S B N ( p r i n t ) :978-0-6397-1907-8© E l a n a B r e g i n A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . N o p a r t o f t h i s p u b l i c a t i o n m a y b e r e p r o d u c e d o r t r a n s m i t t e d i n a n y f o r m o r b y a n y m e a n s , e l e c t r o n i c o r m e c h a n i c a l , i n c l u d i n g p h o t o -c o p y i n g , r e c o r d i n g o r a n y i n f o r m a t i o n s t o r a g e a n d r e t r i e v a l , w i t h o u t p r i o r p e r m i s s i o n i n w r i t i n g f r o m E l a n a B r e g i n . C o v e r D e s i g n : M D e s i g n C o v e r p i c : T h e A u t h o r B a c k C o v e r p h o t o : K h a y a N g w e n y a . S a n d c a r v e r D a v i d J a c o b s w i t h h i s c r e a t i o n t h a t i n s p i r e d a s t o r y . :L a y o u t T y p e s e t i n P a l a t i n o 1 1 . 5 p t

CONTENTS

“uthor’s Note 1

1. The Sandcarver (2003)72. A Question of Belief (2016) 20 3. An Inconvenient Cow (2015) 45 4.That’s Durban(2008) 66 5. Interiors (2016) 74 6. Missing Mama Afrika (2012) 90 7. They (2005) 103 8. Night in Corona City (2020) 121 9. Nearly Too Late (2021) 152 10. Not for Sensitive Viewers (2022) 162 11. The Shining Path (2019) 186 12. Exit to Music (2021) 195

Acknowledgements 214

AUTHOR’SNOTE

The stories in this collection have had an eclectic history. They were written in answer to a variety of literary, contextual and personal challenges, born of my need to make sense of the deep conundrums that shadow our human footsteps through this bipolar existence of ours: horror show on the one hand, sacred pilgrimage on the other. They are offered as my witness to the planetary moment I’ve been part of, the continent I was born on and the difficult country that formed me. They span a time period from 2003 to almost 2023. In those two decades, our world has changed unimaginably, the planet itself rocking precariously as we try to keep our footing amid the quantum shifts that are happening all around us; forcedfor survival’s sakeinto the difficult

transition from our acquisitive, consumptive and highly destructive lifestyle modes to a recognition of our inter-connected reality on a multi-species planet. When I first started putting this collection together I worried that the narrative diversity would be too extreme to fit into any cohesive and coherent frame. But as I re-read these stories, I was struck by their commonality. Irrespective of the stylistic variations between them and the time lapses across the years, there is a discernible similarity of themes and preoccupations that run through these pieces; something examined through a particular lens in one narrative popping up again in different voice and clothing in another. The conundrums of white female characters trying to find their belonging across the gulfs of post-apartheid ȁseparatedevelopment’ identityǲ the inconvenient truths (embodied in a road island cow) that test our allegiance to both homeland and each other; the corrupting worm of power and prestige that infiltrates the psyche of those who lead us; the dangers of draconian rule, however well-intentioned,that can so easily slip into totalitarianism in service to ȁthe common good’ǲthe virus within that mirrors the virus without; the need for spiritual connection in order to maintain an ethically

directed life; our lost connection to the Earth we live on and the creatures we share it with, that manifests in the unending destruction we unleash both on our brethren species and the planetary life support systems; the mystifyingly absent deity we pray toȮor notȮin the great star-abundant mystery of the cosmos; our difficult journeys through the painful hills and vales of being human, en route to the Final Exit that is the ordained destination of us all; and the city of Durban and the continent of Africa that I as writer am so attached to, that provide the context against which these stories unfold.Fiction, in its many facets, is the vehicle for all of these stories. Only the imaginative flexibility of fiction, could contain narratives so disparate in their content and approach. For me, fiction is not roped off into a separate category but is part of a reality continuum. It dances the tightrope between imaginative and real, one foot in what is, another in what if. In that blend of allegorical and actual lies our own deep human essence.In the story ȁThey’, set in a vivisection lab, the question posed is: What if humans were the ones on the other side of the wire? In what way might that alter our view of ourselves as a compassionate and morally superior 3

Voir