When the sun Goes Down and other Short Stories from Africa & Beyond

Edited by Emilia Ilieva &Waveney Olembo

It is a piece of prose fiction aiming at the unity of charecterisation, themes and effects by focussing on a few characters over a short span of time & concentrating events so that they take a short time to render (Mwangi , 2012).

SS is brief & dispenses with unnecessary details

For precision, the genre focuses on a decisive moment of life.

It presents a concentrated action to give the reader a vivid snap short of life.

The novel is expansive than the SS. It handles several themes & incidents in the novel may span several years.

The plot of the SS is not complex. The pace of the plot devt is quick as the narrator avoids double plots & long digression.

It is a collection of writings written by different authors and published in one book in one book.

Eg anthology of poems, SS etc

1. Teach Mastery of the short stories through

Silent reading Loud reading Question answer method especially qns set

at the end of the each ss. Group discussion & class presentations. Dramatize interesting episodes

Discuss the relevance of the title to what is happening in the ss. How does the title contribute to the understanding of the ss?

1st person narration (the I narrator) eg in Twilight trek the narrator tells of his struggle & attempts to leave his country for imagined good life of the west.

Leading xter referred by You. Eg the mirror & I stand here ironing eg I

wish you would manage the time to come in and talk about your daughter---pg127

All knowing narrator Can report on xters thoughts, feelings, their

action & what they say eg War of ears

A)Emigration & its problems egTwilight trek, Arrested development, leaving

(the last brain drain).b) Environmental issues/ Global warmingEg Tuesday siesta, Sandra street.c) Gender issues egLaw of grazing field, the bamboo hut, Two

stories of a house etc.

d) War and its EffectsWar of the ears, white handse) Corruption and its effectsArrested dev, leaving,

Flashback Dream motif Use of epistles eg war of ears, leaving

(email), arrested dev (sms) Use of local dialect –brings out authenticity

& local flavor. Biblical allusion Imagery-similes, metaphors, personification

Characters are participants in the events presented in the story

We use adjectives to describe them. We get to know ones character trait from (examples fro law of Grazing field).

1. what they do (their actions in the story eg modio, Aminas brother slaps her (violent)

2. What they say eg Amina calls Modio---you devil (abusive)

3. What other characters say about the xter eg we know Jama as lazy & cowardly from what Amina says about him.

4.How the writer describes the character

BY Stanley O. Kenani

Story starts with the main xter, Francis Zgambo in a cyber café.

He receives an email from a lady called Tatha. She had been fired from Malawi air after Zgambo had written a negative comment about her.

The narrator, aboard a Malawian Airline to Johannesburg, having won a lottery, in a drunken stupor writes an angry comment about an air hostess who failed to serve him with beer because his glass was still full. This note finally hands the hostess, Tatha, a dismissal.

 

Tatha has written an Email to the narrator telling him about the import of his action – he has killed her dream. This trip, the first and the last the narrator has ever made by plane, was courtesy of a raffle he had won – an all-expense- paid to trip to Johannesburg and two nights in the prestigious Parktonian All-Suite Hotel in Dekorte Street, Partktown and a one-thousand dollar shopping voucher at West-gate Shopping Mall.

This win makes the narrator attain a celebrity status of sorts in his village of Botolo, Lundazi District – Zambia. Everybody wants to associate with him and a local singer has composed a song about his flight. Indeed success has many disciples. The narrator goes by road to Lusaka, his first time to travel to the capital city where he spends at the prestigious Hotel Intercontinental. The following day he takes Malawi Air flight to Lilongwe before connecting to Johannesburg.

 

In retrospect the narrator is regretful of his action. Upon reading Tatha’s email, he feels touched to an extent that he inadequately sheds tears. This one mail seems to have cost him a lot; 13 American dollars leaving him with little to spend for the month. He feels with Tatha and regrets having made such negative statements about her. He decides and sets out on a journey to take back his comments.

 

The narrator is haunted by a guilty conscience. Rather than retract his comments by email or through a letter, he decides to travel to Malawi to see the CEO of Malawi Airlines to retract his comments about Tatha. He goes into great pains; sells his South Africa possessions so as to travel to Malawi to personally apologize to Tatha. His resolve to physically retract his negative comments is emboldened when Tatha fails to reply to his mail offering apologies unreservedly.

 

The narrator arrives in Blantyre after a long tiresome journey by road; with crammed up transport system. This transport system is bent on raking in profits at the expense of human comfort.

 

At the CEO’s office, the narrator comes face-to-face with the dismissive office receptionists. He is made to wait longer to see the Chief Executive. Office telephones are for personal use and the conversations that are carried on have nothing to do with the core business. The CEO makes him do the retraction in writing.

  The narrator seeks out Tatha so as to personally

apologize. His encounter with Towera, Tatha’s friend, does not make things better for him. He accuses him of ruining Tatha’s life and this aggravates his guilt. Towera takes him to Tatha’s home in Chitawira.

 

The narrator is drenched in rain on her way to Tatha’s house. When she opens the door, she fails to let him in and accuses him of killing her dream and sends him away in the rain. As he turns to walk away, Tatha calls him back but he refuses. Tatha then rushes after him. The two walk in the rain before Tatha lets him go into the darkness.

  This experience remains edged in the narrator’s

mind. Years later, he realizes that Tatha is the Kenya Airways’ Employee of the year.