FOR WHAT ARE BUTTERFLIES WITHOUT WINGS

Description

Description:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Troy Onyango’s For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings is a collection of 12 short stories that have a quickening pulse and pages crackling with sharp observations and gentle revelations about solitude, loneliness, connection, loss, love, and the infinite intricacies of daily human life.

In the twelve stories that make up For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings themes of love, longing, grief, loss, youth, sexuality all come together in one complete patchwork.

In the opening story, The Transfiguration, a transwoman tries to find herself and a sense of belonging in the unkind streets of Nairobi. A sister relives two decades of sibling rivalry when the brother disappears in a lake in the titular story For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings. A young man, overwhelmed with grief and tired of the streak of bad luck that has marked him from birth, decides to take his own life in All Things Bright & Beautiful. Two friends grow apart as they grow older and realise their paths diverge in Goodbye, So Long.

In these beautiful stories that straddle the breadth of Kenya, Troy’s characters navigate the daily lived experiences that shape them, as they learn to cobble together an existence alongside a society with rules that do not quite fit.

“Troy Onyango’s For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings has a quickening pulse and pages crackling with sharp observations and gentle revelations about solitude, loneliness, connection, loss, love, and the infinite intricacies of daily human life. With accomplished perceptive prose and a voice that is all his own, Onyango transports the reader towards and beyond the unexplored frontiers and territories of the self. This debut collection of short stories is a crucial and long-awaited entry into the African literary tradition.” – Rémy Ngamije, author of The Eternal Audience of One

“The vibrant intensities of Onyango’s deftly crafted characters makes this collection of stories come alive.” – TJ Benson, author of The Madhouse                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            * Title: For What are Butterflies without their Wings
* Author(s) name(s): Troy Onyango
* ISBN: 9789789987870
* Publisher: Masobe Books
* Publication date: 12/12/2022
* Format: Paperback
* Page count: 219