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Essence Apparatus is a collection of fiction short stories rooted in poetry and the traditions of ‘the uncanny' and ‘weird' writing. Included are also three expository essays relating to my creative work and its contextual and theoretical underpinnings, going in-depth on my relationship with the genre of science fiction and its literary device ‘cognitive estrangement', the tradition of writing the uncanny and the weird, and my Scandinavian and South African sources of inspiration. The short story collection Essence Apparatus feature zombies in Finland; an animalistic metamorphosis on the archipelago of Svalbard; the Chernobyl accident; humans living on Mars returning to their origins on Earth, but also interpersonal relationships between a daughter and her father, two sisters, and lovers. The stories explore the hard problem of consciousness and other philosophical questions; the search for knowledge and a feeling of belonging in a nature not fully understood, and the mechanisms of translocation and transfiguration as a fundamental part of being human.

This is a book of poems that are also stories.

This memoir/dissertation is about the relationship between two brothers growing up in apartheid South Africa during the eighties. Hlonkis wishes for his brother Thabang to live peacefully back home after years in exile. He reminisces about their earlier years in QwaQwa when his brother was playful and full of mischief like any other teenager. But when he comes back home his brother is a total stranger. He does not say much about his time in exile as a freedom fighter. Instead, Thabang hurries back to his birthplace in Thaba Nchu to lay the wreaths on their maternal side which includes a war veteran. Later he moves to Bloemfontein where a reception is held in his honour by the paternal side of the family. Meanwhile, no such event is held in Pimville, Soweto their home. The State charges Thabang criminally. Hlonkis believes the charges are trumped up and decides to go to court to prove it. His brother decides to represent himself at a case which attracts media attention and some protestors. The State convicts his brother and sentences him to time in jail. Whilst in prison, his health deteriorates. Prison is no comfort zone. But Thabang downplays it and hatches a plan to study further. His wish is to compensate for the gap left in his high school studies when he skipped the country to join the liberation army. His deteriorating condition gets in the way of applying for studies. Soon he is released from prison on medical parole. At their home in Pimville Thabang battles with a dreaded disease. The costs of medical attention and his acute state of illness make his recovery near impossible. Hlonkis can only get to internalise the lessons that his brother, on his sick bed, tries to impart. One of them is the spirit of generosity. But will Hlonkis ever find out the truth about his brother?

A Secretary's Wife is a work of historical fiction that draws from real events and people who emerge from the journals and letters of Lady Anne Barnard while she was in the Cape for the period 1797–1802. Lady Anne Lindsay marries a younger man without title or fortune. When he lands a position as secretary to the governor of the Cape, she is determined to go with him. They make the journey on a crowded ship to Cape Town and, on arrival, find the Cape expensive and turbulent. Narrow-minded people complain incessantly, slavery and hangings are rife, and shortages of wood, flour and other commodities are commonplace. Life improves after they are offered accommodation in the abandoned old Government House at the castle. They set up a home and try to understand the culture, the people around them and each other. Barnard begins to thrive leaving Anne to her own devices. At the same time, she come to terms with being barren within the context of her society. The use of a country cottage called Paradise helps the Barnards reconnect, but when Lady Anne suspects Barnard's infidelity with a slave woman and, due to ill health, the governor leaves the Cape, life can never be the same again. In writing this work, I have attempted to reimagine Lady Anne Barnard's life, in particular the personal aspects to which she may have made fleeting references, otherwise it is entirely fictional.

Primarily through adolescent narrators, Boys to Men is a series of short stories that attempts to identify the lessons, traumas, and joys that offer—and in some cases, withhold—the tools that allow Black boys to become Black men. In "Hard Ball," an eleven-year-old baseball player on the cusp of entering middle school wants nothing more than to be less sensitive. In "That's the Way Love Goes," a fifteen-year-old visiting Florida for the summer faces his first hurricane, alone with only his grandmother and unresolved family turmoil as company. And in "Hallelujah," a young church-goer publicly challenges a powerful, yet unruly spiritual leader in an endeavor to defend the people he loves. Through the intersections of masculinity, racism, family, and even religion, this collection offers a unique perspective of how these various experiences influence the everchanging manhood of Black boys.

The Genealogy of Desolate Landscapes looks at loss, sense of place, and how the communities we build keep us going during times of grief. At the heart of the collection is the speaker's relationship with his paternal grandmother and how her death from cancer impacted the speaker's relationship with his birth father's family and ultimately a part of their sense of self. Drawing from a range of forms, The Genealogy of Desolate Landscapes asks us how humans project their emotions onto the landscapes we inhabit and in looking at communities, those we are born into and those we cultivate, we may just find what propels us in times of grief.

Elizabeth is six when the ANC wins the first democratic elections in South Africa. While most of the country celebrates freedom, the only difference she notices is the growing intensity of her fears. Fear remains a faithful companion to Elizabeth as she grows up. She fears the rubbish trucks in her childhood, the Valentine's Dance in high school, and the remote possibility of passing out in a gutter somewhere in her first year of university. The short stories in this collection feature a similar (and often contradictory) version of the protagonist, from Elizabeth's childhood in eastern Johannesburg to her early adult years in an uptight Cape Town neighbourhood. Each story deals with a dilemma unique to each life stage and should be read in isolation. But its neighbours in the collection reveal the recurring tensions that influence an identity. In Elizabeth's case, these include the role of her religion, her repressed racism, and the bizarre benefits of gross inequality. All of these contribute to her urge, as a white girl in post-apartheid South Africa, to peer across from her and check if she should be somewhere, or someone, else.

Goodbye Letter to the Living explores power and trust in relationships—how quickly even the most loving relationships can turn into contests or battles of will. It looks at how one's perception of something shapes their realty. In In and Out, a love-struck bartender hunts for her maybe-cheating boyfriend. In The Wizard Who Wasn't, a young boy tries to help his sister, and save his parents' marriage, with a groundless belief that he has magic. And in the titular story, a drowned woman watches from the ocean as her sister tries to navigate both her grief and their narcissistic mother. Above all, this collection asks how far we'll go for the ones we love and whether some distances are just too great to conquer.

Please note: creative writing works are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and fill out the appropriate web form. / Compendium of original fiction / 2999-01-01T00:00:00Z