New Read

Chika Unigwe's short story, Waiting, is in the current issue of Per Contra. This was one story of Unigwe's that I'd somehow never read before now, although I'm sure I've read about it someplace. Oge is heading home from a shopping trip, after buying a few things that her son Jordi may not actually need. Her husband Gunter thinks she spoils the boy. Gunter has changed somewhat. Why? Waiting has a neat surprise at the end.

Excerpt
She should have made a list. She is always forgetting things and Gunter used to find it endearing. My little forgetful wife, he used to say, laughing. My little forgetful wife. One day you’d forget your head. And then where would we all be? And she had laughed with him too. Now, when he laughs it is because there is something funny on TV. She never watches TV with him, especially not when there is a comedy on because they do not find the same things funny. She finds his humour dry. It had never mattered before: this difference but now, like all the other ways in which they are different, it bothers her and she wonders why she ever married him in the first place.

Unigwe is the author of the novel, Black Sisters' Street.
Read Waiting here.

Miriam N Kotzin, one of Per Contra's editors, has been very good at showcasing new fiction by African women writers over the last few years. She has an interview with Chika Unigwe in this edition.