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Category Archives: Fictions

Aguê the Sinister, also called Azizan

Among the Ewe people of Togo (formerly Togoland), the village of Bé lies at the foot of the Tokoin plateau, between a stagnant lagoon and a sacred wood, the meagre remnant of an ancient equatorial forest that once covered the south of the country in its entirety. Here, the animist bokonon priests and priestesses of the python cult worship the forces of […]

The Pelican

Or; Some Further Notes Towards the Bestiary To the researches of the antiquary and scholar Jorge Luis ‘Vintage’ Borges, a few points offer further context on that most peripatetic of birds in this, our present century. . Learned reports come from South Asia, where the spotted-bill Filipino pelican (phillipensis) is found, with no small irony, only in Cambodia, the Indian peninsular, and in Sri Lanka (or the contemporary […]

Bleak Howzat!?— Charles Dickens pays a visit to The Cricket Club

(in loving memory of its former incarnation) . Colombo. The Galle and Pallakele matches lately over, the series lost, and the selectors falling back on Maitland Place in hopes of inspiration for the third and final test. The last of the erratic rains now gone, the water in the half-uncovered sewers stagnant, rank with garbage. […]

WHAT’S YOUR FULL NAME, RANK, AND SERIAL NUMBER (SPECIAL OPS EDITION)?

Your Full Name, Rank, and Serial Number (Special Ops Edition) is: ‘Bob’ .

WHAT’S YOUR CARTHAGINIAN-GENERAL-WHO-IS-UNFAIRLY-DEEMED-LESS-NOTEWORTHY-THAN-HIS-CARTHAGINIAN-GENERAL-BROTHER NAME?

Your Carthaginian-General-who-is-Unfairly-Deemed-Less-Noteworthy-than-his-Carthaginian-General-Brother Name is: Hasdrubal .

WHAT’S YOUR AFRIKAANS-TRANSLATOR NAME?

Your Afrikaans-Translator Name is L’Angoustine Bezuidenhout .

Translator’s Note (after Khemiri, after Heti, after Valtat, after Coetzee, after Nooteboom, after Martin, after Kierkegaard)

What I would like to say by way of introduction to my essays on the art of writing, by A.B.C.D.E.F. Godthaab* (* Bear with me, please, while I endeavour to explain what is going on here.) . Twelve years ago, I wrote, with considerable emotional anguish, a long novel about a war against the languages. […]

A short story

I am currently in possession of two secrets: . . . …

The hashtags of Omar Khayyam

#verses #wine #bread #thou (Enow?)

Joke

A cafetière falls down the stairs. *¡Bodum CRASH!*