Returning home to bury his brother after seven years abroad, the narrator recalls their life with a grandmother and with an adopted sister and stuttering friend, both come to escape the predatory history of a particular corner of Africa.
He describes the trajectories of their lives; Puso, his brother, always earnest but now dead and to be put into the ground, his white wife, shattered and berating the harshness of custom and of the elements; Twice, so named because of his stutter, come to escape the politics of " ... the country neighbouring ours", then disappeared again to become a more exact refugee; Abuti Jefti, repository of their history and still drunk and dishevelled in the yard in front of his house; Thembi their adopted sister, at first diffident and then a firm occupant of their home, bequeathed to her on account of their migration to better opportunity.
How We Buried Puso is an invocation for connection, for the reconstruction of societies, for faith in family and community and for the spiritual odyssey, however conjured up.
Morabo Morejele was born in Lesotho and grew up in Ethiopia and Italy where his father was employed as a United Nations official. He attended school in Swaziland and in the U.K. and has degrees from the London School of Economics and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. He has worked in the development sector in Lesotho and South Africa, for international organisations, NGOs, private consulting firms and in academia. Morabo is an active musician who has performed and recorded with many leading South African jazz musicians.
|
News Feeds 
