Wearing a female hat isn’t something I do very often, but in my forthcoming story for AGNI 72, that is exactly what I do. In fiction my main characters usually morph instinctually into the male persona. Yes, I have written the female point of view in the odd story, and I suppose I have been ‘female’ in quite a few poems too, where it is usually simply the conceit of affecting the ‘she’ pronoun… okay, so I tell a lie… there was the poem, Prayer before Flight (a.k.a. the Portrait of the Poet as a Hijabed Woman)  which is, I think, intrinsically woman. Anyway the point of this blog is that in the short story Sentencing for Six which is scheduled for the print edition of AGNI in their special portfolio on African literature, I indulge the audacity of a female voice in the most female of situations. What is the story about? Well, I’ll just quote the whole of the first paragraph:

It started out a rape—I will swear to this on my mother’s grave.

I am afraid you will have to read the rest in the magazine. Or attend the reading and launch on November 10th 2010 (BU’s Photonics Center Auditorium, 8 St. Mary’s Street, Boston). Starts with a 4:00 p.m.  panel discussion on contemporary African fiction ( BU’s African Studies Center, 232 Bay State Road, Boston). If you do run the story down to ground you’ll let me know what you think of the persona as a… er … woman, won’t you?