The relationship I’ve been lucky enough to have with South Africa is one of my most cherished. This magnificent debut collection of stories set in Soweto centers Black South Africans and township life through apartheid and beyond. Undiluted, challenging and defiant, this is liberating writing.

It was an OK reading experience. I think an audiobook version would have been more enjoyable in an audiobook format. I do hope an audiobook version will be released.
#Innards #NetGalley

Bold and brave in the terrain of community, hardships and heartships. There's landscape in the language here, vast and inventive in how language is a ways of relaying history that is found knotted, right and loose, with the people of Soweto.

These short stories rely on each other, require understanding and spatial awareness of the worlds and otherworldliness found in the ways we find homes within each other. For the reader, patience is required, but once kinship is made between reader and text, Makhene offers her home to us with so much color and vibrancy that fills you with wonder.

Ultimately, this is Makhene's love letter to her hometown, Soweto. It's wrought with so much faith and honesty that every word is meant to be there. As she is meant to be so proud to be from Soweto.

A fresh voice not to be missed.

Makhene made me want this book to be longer than it is. This is immersive and extraordinary writing. What a gift. These stories are intensely sensuous, every one of my senses was firing, the smells, the sounds, the way things look in a particular slant of sun. What I adore about this language and these stories is the way the language is so unfamiliar. Here is a book originally written in an English unfamiliar to me, a language that zips and sings and doesn't care whether it challenges my American-English ear, or not, and. Makhene even drops in some Afrikaans, when the mood suits her, or the story warrants it, of course she does because everyone in her native country knows at least some Afrikaans.

I come to this novel as a spectator. I love that this book was not written for me. I love that it is not a translation, where the goal is to give me as close an approximation as possible to my native language--and yet it isn't my language. This is a foreign, gorgeous form of English. Wonderful.

This book is super original, and anyone who wants to learn more about South Africa and its history from an African perspective should pick it up. I found it a little hard to get into, personally, but I think the subject matter is important for people to understand if they come from another part of the world like I do. The style and page/conversation format took a minute to get used to, but I think it works in the author's favor, and the lines in Afrikaans help the reader get immersed in the world.

What I liked about this book was that the stories were very intimate and some characters reappeared in different stories (sort of a "linked fates" situation). My favorite stories were:

-Indians Can't Fly
-7678B Chris Hani Road
-Jesus Owes Me Money
-The Caretaker

This book definitely made me want to read more #ownstories about the effects of Apartheid and how it affected South African communities as well as how it is still affecting them today.

Overall, I feel like this collection of stories is an advanced character study of society during Apartheid in Soweto and South Africa. I describe it as "advanced" because having never read anything on this topic before, there was so much of the language and phraseology that I had a hard time understanding. This doesn't mean it couldn't be understood, of course, but as an entry to the topic and conversation around Apartheid I felt like this was inaccessible for me (this is very much a "me" problem). I need to keep up! 📚

Recommendations to my fellow readers for the best reading experience:

- Listen to this book (as an audiobook)! I think that's what I missed out on the most, inflection and tone. If I had been able to hear many of the words/phrases spoken in the original language, I'd at least be able to infer what they were saying and the emotions behind it.

- Read other #ownstories about Apartheid and its effects before this one. If you feel comfortable with the language or history this doesn't apply! But if you're like me and this would be your first foray into the topic/history, do a bit of prep/research beforehand.

"White supremacy has gnawed out our wards, often distorting who we are--even to ourselves--by pretending the entirety of our being boils down to a simple equation without meaning beyond the white gaze."

This collection of stories is wise and very needed for people of all races and ethnicities to read. It explores the harsh experience of racism through historically and culturally accurate fictional stories. I was intrigued and captivated throughout all the stories and read this collection in one sitting. I highly recommend it!

This short story collection was a beautiful way to learn more about South African life. The descriptive language was arresting yet accessible, the framing clever but relatable. I really enjoyed this one.

“innards” by magogodi aomphela makhene is a collection of beautifully written short stories about black lives in south africa. not only did i learn a lot about apartheid and the oppression and murder of black people in this county, but i was struck by the way makhene writes about her culture so vividly. from food, to clothes, to ways of thinking, “innards” has it all. offals are often looked down upon as the parts of animal no one wants to eat, but makhene weaves them into her stories in such a way that they seem inseparable from her culture.

the prose is beautiful, at times very poetic, and the stories are heartbreaking. her characters are extremely real and well developed. each and every one of these stories shocked and enlightened me on what life is truly like for black folks in south africa and how dangerous it is for people to simply exist whilst black. this collection is extremely noteworthy, and i urge you all to read it when it is published.

happy black history month!

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Magogodi oaMphela Makhene’s wonderfully fresh and unique style is an absolute delight. Narration is forthright, unforgiving, intense. It tugs readers into the story as a silent cast member, equally afflicted. The dialogue, filled with honesty and heart, pops and crackles across the page. There is a fresh cadence to each story, a tweak that gives each its own energy. Makhene plays with point of view, opening with a house telling its story. After that, we are so tightly tucked in, we cannot help but follow through.

Makhene will expose the rapacity of colonialism and apartheid in this novel, laying bare the savagery and barbarism from on the ground. Families moved in cattle lorries to a barren field bordered by municipal sewage farms, crammed in tiny, dirt-floored homes. Excrement that runs in the streets when it rains and the rot of a rabid dog tossed against a front door will befoul our nostrils, clench our stomachs. We are plugged into the frenzied and disoriented mind of the tortured. Images flashing, smothering perceptions that cause us to breath deeply as we feel the bag over our own heads. We meet a grandfather whose ancestors could conjure rain for Zimbabwe’s royal crops by chanting the clan’s praise name making his living on a rusty bike selling animal waste, innards that no one else wants.

Makhene will need her reader to approach this book with patience, as many of us will stumble on the venacular. It was often a challenge to follow the conversation, but this does not stop me from rating this book as it should be rated. If we invest in Makhene, she will reward us.

Thank you to W.W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for providing this eARC.