Two Stories by Sarah Mkhonza

Two Stories is a chapbook of short stories by Ithaca City of Asylum resident writer Sarah Mkhonza.

"The stories of Sarah Mkhonza are deceptively simple on the surface, smooth as a country pond, but deep and roiled beneath. And though they feel ancient, they're as relevant as anything in today's news."-- Russell Banks

In these stories, Sarah Mkhonza creates a set of sharply drawn, unsparing portraits of women living at the edges of Swazi society, from the landless scavengers of "No Place to Die" to the childless wife struggling to keep her husband in "Where Was Manandi Last Night."

Born in Swaziland, Sarah Mkhonza is the author of countless newspaper articles, two young adult novels, and a collection of poetry. She currently lives in Ithaca, New York.

From Two Stories

It was in the small hours of the morning, and she could see the light through the cracks in the walls of the hut. She looked at the place where the thatch met the wall and confirmed that it was surely daybreak. Makatikoti stretched out on the mat, still hoping that she was dreaming. She could not believe it. Manandi had not come home. She wondered what had happened to him...

$12.95
36 pages
ISBN 0-9798112-0-1

Audience by Bridget Meeds

In a series of post-performance scenes, Bridget Meeds crosses and recrosses the line between observer and observed, turning inward in a play of witness, action, and memory. Audience begins in the shadows of September 11th and spans a year as Meeds travels from one entertainment to another and the nation moves inexorably toward war.

Bridget Meeds is the author of the long poem Light, about a year working in a pizzeria in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Tuning the Beam, about a month as a poet-in-residence at a laboratory for high-energy particle physics.

From Audience

Takacs Quartet
April 20, 2002

A tidal wave of little deaths
crests and crashes over the world,
and another and another and another...

$12.95
73 pages
ISBN 0-9798112-1-X