A new short story by Ghanaian writer Ayesha Harruna Attah has been published in the literary journal Asymptote. Attah is the author of the Commonwealth Prize shortlisted novel Harmattan Rain.
For today’s Fiction Friday, read her story “Incident on the Way to Bakoy Market” in which the “madness” of the country in transition seeps through to the protagonist as she drives to the market:
We went mad after the transition. The Doctor had given up his military regime and was now president of our democratic country, but everyone knows a zebra never changes its stripes. In my household, we were going through our own changes: Kojo was away for the first time at a boarding school controlled by the same bloodthirsty thieves who ruled the country, Theo was stuck in a hole at the ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Atsu, a meek girl from the village, had just started working for us. Me? I was wondering how long I had to live.
Either the madness seeped in from the outside, or it was a latent virus in each of us, waiting for the right moment to unleash its deadly nucleic acid. I know exactly when it hit me. It was the day I was shopping for my annual Christmas party, which was a week away.
I was driving to the Bakoy Market to get the party items. A hot harmattan afternoon, the sky was shaded with grey dust, and congestion was relentless. The traffic lights weren’t working, not a single policeman stood in sight, and taxis and minivans cut in and out of tiny impossible spaces. I inched my car forward.
Book details
- Harmattan Rain by Ayesha Harruna Attah
EAN: 9782911928121
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