Great African Reads discussion

This is the winner of the 2017 Caine Prize. There is a short bio of the author on wikipedia. The Chair of Judges, Nii Ayikwei Parkes praised the story, saying, “The winning story is one that explores through metaphor and an altered, inventive mode of perception – including, for the first time in the Caine Prize, illustration – the allure of, and relentless threats to freedom. Rooted in a mix of classical traditions as well as the vernacular contexts of its location, Bushra al-Fadil’s “The Story of the Girl Whose Birds Flew Away”, is at once a very modern exploration of how assaulted from all sides and unsupported by those we would turn to for solace we can became mentally exiled in our own lands, edging in to a fantasy existence where we seek to cling to a sort of freedom until ultimately we slip into physical exile.” Quote from article

It is a translated story and the first thing that struck me is the poetics of the language particularly in the first half of the story. I found the contrast of opposites created a beautifully poetic, rhythmic opening paragraph - "There I was, cutting through a strange market crowd – not just people shopping for their salad greens, but beggars and butchers and thieves, prancers and Prophet-praisers and soft-sided soldiers, the newly-arrived and the just-retired, the flabby and the flimsy, sellers roaming and street kids groaning, god-damners, bus-waiters and white-robed traders, elegant and fumbling. And there in the midst, our elected representatives, chasing women with their eyes and hands and whole bodies, with those who couldn’t give chase keeping pace with an indiscrete and sensual attention, or lost in a daydream"

The first half of the story tells of a romantic street encounter between the narrator and a beautiful girl and her sister who entranced the narrator making him dream of an impossible future "My thoughts fled to a future I longed for" SPOILER ALERT - The second half abrubtly turns as the girls are found murdered the verbal violent of the bus journey made manifest. I loved the way he paved the way for the end through the verbal interaction between the bus driver and one of his passengers, and by his description of the passengers eys as they encountered the girls. ".The passengers' eyes, like glass saws, flew over the thighs and eyes and faces of the young girls", the violence is percolating just below the surface, sometime bubbling over, oftimes not seen unless looked for, unless you know what to look for. Contrast this to the romance of the encounter between the girl and the narrator in which they quote poetry and banter back and forth about it in a different type of duel. The hustle and bustle of the market place and of getting on the bus is contrasted to the grls serene, almost floating presence - "Although it was not their custom" the bus passengers stand back to let them on, "She walked in waves, as if her body were an auger spiralling through a cord of wood" This story is beautifully written/translated.

The author himself speaks about the choice of words for the English title in this interview saying he wrote it as ‘The Girl whose Sparrows Flew Away’ He sadly gives no insight into what those sparrows represent. I suppose it is like birds on a crop field, chased away "As long as the innocent birds were struck with stones and selfish desires, they would continue to land in such ugly places against their will, in patches full of violence and hate." finally they would land somewhere where a stone would hit them and kill them. The beautiful girl and her sister - her talisman against the cars, against the men - are the birds and society shuns or pelts them, only in the banter with the narrator does the girl experience freedom to interact with another being. Such a sad story, a metaphor for how society treats women . I'd be interested in other readers interpretations