The Indigo Press

Silence is My Mother Tongue

What are the right questions to ask when seeking out the true spirit of a nation?

In November 2017 the people of Zimbabwe took to the streets in an unprecedented alliance with the military. Their goal, to restore the legacy of Chimurenga, the liberation struggle, and wrest their country back from over thirty years of Robert Mugabe’s rule.

In an essay that combines bold reportage, memoir and critical analysis, Zimbabwean novelist and journalist Panashe Chigumadzi reflects on the ‘coup that was not a coup’, the telling of history and manipulation of time and the ancestral spirts of two women – her own grandmother and Mbuya Nehanda, the grandmother of the nation.

These Bones Will Rise Again is the first publication in The Indigo Press's Mood Indigo series - in which leading writers reflect on the pressing social and political issues of our time. 

 

Silence is My Mother Tongue

Sulaiman Addonia

25 October 2018 | £12.99 | Demy Paperback with French Flaps

A searing novel of love, judgement and sacrifice and the powerful bonds forged in the crucible of refugee camp life from an internationally-acclaimed writer 

Saba, the novel’s heroine, arrives in an East African refugee camp as a young girl. In this crowded and often hostile place, she has to carve out her new existence. As she struggles to maintain her sense of self, Saba remains fiercely protective of her mute brother Hagos – each sibling resisting the role
gender and society assigns.

Silence is My Mother Tongue is an extraordinary portrait of a woman of courage and intelligence and a compelling story of exile, survival, and love. Sulaiman Addonia questions what it means to be a man, to be a woman, to be an individual when circumstance has forced the loss of all that makes a home and the possibility of a future.

This is a book about love in a time of conflict, incisively dissecting society’s ability to wage war on its own women and exploring the stories we must tell and absorb to survive, cementing Addonia as a gifted literary talent whose stories reach across enforced borders towards the universal conflicts of the human heart.

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Silence is My Mother Tongue