By Nikita Blair
March is Women’s History Month, in which we celebrate women’s contributions to history, culture and society. This year’s theme is “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories”, acknowledging the women—both past and present—who have been active in all forms of media and storytelling. This year, my readings have taken me all the way to Zimbabwe with a collection of speculative short fiction that mostly centres around women and their experiences living in a patriarchal society while they navigate capitalism, immigration, resource and worker exploitation and womanhood. This book is Drinking From Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu.
Drinking From Graveyard Wells contains 13 stories and a series of 12 interconnected microstories in which Ndlovu uses science fiction, afro-surrealism, and absurdist fiction to examine these themes in chilling, genre-bending and heart-breaking ways that are as fantastical as they are true. Yet, amid the horror of this collection, there are elements of hope as the characters find ways to live in systems that often disenfranchise and disadvantage them. While I enjoyed many of the stories in this collection, I only have the space and time to review a few. These are my favourites and some of the themes Ndlovu explores in her collection.