Drinking From Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
Drinking From Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
a book review
In Drinking Drinking From Graveyard Wells, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu offers a haunting kaleidoscope of modern life seasoned by the rich history and lore of Zimbabwe. These short stories slip between genres, painting an eloquent, chilling, and sometimes painful picture of the countless unsung African women who have and continue to transport our civilization on their backs through time.
This short story collection is an evocative omnibus of darkly magical and modern stories unearthed from Zimbabwean lore and pop culture. Some are visceral nightmare-inducing accounts of vengeful spirits, sinister magicks, and spiteful gods. Some are chilling observations on the banality and cruelty of human nature.
In these stories, Ndlovu critiques the corrupt political systems, defeatism, and economic impotence that undermine post-colonial cultures. She lays bare the insidious roots of patriarchy bent on stripping women of their basic human rights and agency. She calls out the unfairness and hypocrisy of society’s insistence that certain freedoms, including sexuality, must be taboo for women but not for men, and derides the sheer arrogance of men who dare hold women in their contempt.
Ndlovu weaves emblems of popular culture, people we may know, and urban tales into a tapestry of unsettling yet enthralling sense of unreal-realness that epitomizes the best afro-surrealism and afrofantasy have to offer.
About the Author
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean sarungano (storyteller). Her debut short story collection Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky, Spring 2023) was selected for the 2021 UPK New Poetry & Prose Series.
She is pursuing her MFA at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she teaches in the Writing Program. She has taught at Clarion West Writers Workshop online and earned her BA at Cornell University. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Tin House Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute.