- a spider weaves, weaves
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- #5 — a spider weaves, weaves
Hello.
First, the good news: the cover reveal of BUT NOT TOO BOLD, with art and design by Andrew Davis. Although I wasn’t able to fully enjoy this lovely cover because a lot of things happened this month, I’m glad to finally share it with you:
Alt: An electric blue spider resting on pink tiles with purple floral designs on the edges.
I also published RABBIT’S FOOT on The Dark Magazine, reprinted from my bilingual collection A STUDY IN UGLINESS & OUTRAS HISTÓRIAS. It's a horror short story about a young woman with facial blindness rescued after a car crash by a couple who seems disturbingly familiar, even though she can’t tell why.
Everyone used to call her Bunny back in school. Raíssa didn’t mind, at first; it was not that hurtful, as far as nicknames go, and she liked the sound of it. The boy who sat in front of her, a Júlio or João or Jaime or some other name, used to playfully pick on her: you have such a bunny smile that, when you laugh, your nose moves like a little snout.
Things had been nice, once.
So, the bad news. My city spent the past month underwater thanks to the climate disaster in southern Brazil. I was out of town when it happened because my husband and I were going to two birthday parties in another state, a trip we had planned since last year, and the airport closed the same day we were supposed to return. This means we spent more than 20 days there thanks to the kindness of our very lovely friends, with no way to work, two bags, and a broken phone. So now we’re scrambling to make ends meet, but we’re fine, and we’re back. Unfortunately, more than two million people have been greatly affected by this calamity, are still displaced and/or lost everything. Here’s what you can do if you’re not Brazilian.
The horrors in Gaza are also worse than ever, so please consider checking the following links to donate if you can, and share them if you can’t: gazafunds.com (donates directly to Palestinian families), the Sameer Project (for tents), Gaza Municipality’s water project. You can also follow @CareForFaza and @GazaDirectAid.
See you next month!
Hache 🕷️
The Joyful Song of the Partridge 🇲🇿 O Alegre Canto da Perdiz
(Paulina Chiziane, 2008, trans. David Brookshaw)
A naked woman is seen in the river of a small town in Zambezia. They don’t know who she is, or what she’s doing; they think her mad. Maria das Dores, as she’s called, is searching for her children. Years before, Delfina is ready to do anything to marry a rich white man, even if it’s witchcraft, even if it means selling her own daughter and driving away her other children.
I’ve been postponing adding The Joyful Song of the Partridge to the recommendations for a very good reason: its first English translation just came out! I read the original version a few years ago in Portuguese, since Brazil and Mozambique share the same colonial language, and Chiziane’s prose is nothing short of spectacular. It has a musical quality to it, like it was meant to be read out loud, it melts and blooms, it’s use of language is evergrowing and beautiful. If you haven’t had the chance of reading Mozambican literature yet, this painful but lyrical analysis of colonialism, race and gender is a good way to start.