reviews/media
A Fine Madness: Review of Call it a difficult night, Masanda Ntshanga for Chimurenga Chronic
Her mind. For a slim novel, Call it a difficult night, gallops forward with the headiness of a palimpsest, crossing in, out, over and under itself, employing repetition and motifs, switching from the first-person to the second – into verse and tracts of non-fiction – all of which communicate the experience of being seized by the narrator’s illness: its manner of binding, both flagrant and subtle, imminent and immediate, issues both from the self as well as from those charged with managing and treating it. This is us going beyond the illustrative, it seems to insist. This is us plunging into the titular night.
Q & A on “Wedding Henna” - Winner of the 2017 Short Sharp Stories Award - Bookslive
Mishka Hoosen‘s ‘Wedding Henna’ won the R20 000 prize for BEST STORY. Hoosen’s tender and sensual writing explores the delicate process of painting lacy floral patterns, in henna, on the bride’s hands on the morning of her wedding. Behind this technical artistry, the author weaves another, more haunting tale, as she explores the past relationship between her protagonist, Aisha, and the bride to be. Mishka and Joanne Hichens, curator of the Short.Sharp.Stories Award, recently discussed her winning entry
Torment Talking - Bongani Kona reviews Call it a difficult night, Bookslive
In their collaborative study Narrating Our Healing, psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela and literary scholar Chris van der Merwe write: “Recovery … begins with the finding of words and of a story about what happened; ‘translating’ trauma into the structure of a language and a narrative is a way of bringing order and coherence into the chaotic experience.”
Mishka Hoosen’s searing debut novel, Call it a Difficult Night, is an attempt at exactly that. Moving between places, time zones, and modes of writing – fiction, essay, memoir, poetry – the book chronicles a young woman’s struggle with mental health.