Shelfies #5: Cheryl S. Ntumy

This is my private stash – books I keep in my bedroom because I’m reading them, will soon read them or just like having them close. 

The first book I bought with my own money, money I’d earned, was House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds. I’m madly in love with this space opera/love story/mystery featuring my favourite robot character of all time (not that the term “robot” does him justice). The protagonists are two clones out of a thousand, sent off into space to explore and then reunite to share their memories. The book follows two main storylines, but there are enough layers woven into it that it feels like a story within a story within a story, a delicious puzzle I never tire of putting together.

Having spent most of my life in Botswana, I have a soft spot for Tlotlo Tsamaase’s Womb City, Gothataone Moeng’s Call and Response and Barolong Seboni’s Nitty Gritty: The Book of Meanings. These three books explore Botswana society in different ways. Nitty Gritty is a clever satirical examination of the social and political landscape, as told through the eyes of the patrons of a beloved drinking spot. Call and Response is a collection of short stories that offer poignant, moving glimpses into the life of the Motswana everywoman. Womb City is a visceral commentary on gender and power dynamics, set in a dystopian Botswana where body swapping and mind control technologies have taken over. There’s something special about reading stories set in places you know well, with characters you recognize and cultural elements so familiar that you don’t even question them. It makes me wonder how much nuance I’m missing when I read stories set elsewhere.

I bought myself Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés for my 30^th birthday. This is my favourite type of non-fiction book; a book about stories and how they shape us. I can be quite mystical about stories; I like to say that they are my religion, and this book presents them as part of a sacred path to healing and self-actualization. It explores our relationship with the wilderness – both within and without – through timeless folktales that have been reimagined so many times we barely remember how they began, unpacking the deeper meanings of these stories and the lessons they’re meant to teach us. There’s an especially enlightening take on the Bluebeard story, which I first read as a child and which haunted my dreams for years. The target audience is women but it’s the kind of book anyone can benefit from. Clarissa Pinkola Estés says stories are medicine. I couldn’t agree more. 

Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of short fiction and novels of speculative fiction, young adult fiction and romance. Her work has appeared in FIYAH Literary Magazine; Apex Magazine; World Literature Today; Best of World SF Vol. 3 and Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022, among others. Her work has also been nominated for the Nommo Award for African Speculative Fiction, the British Science Fiction Association Award, the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship. She is part of the Sauútiverse Collective, which created a shared universe for Afrocentric speculative fiction, and a member of Petlo Literary Arts, an organisation that develops and promotes creative writing in Botswana.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. If you are interested in sharing a shelfie, please let us know.