All Gomorrahs Are The Same - Thenjiwe Mswane

I know I have said this about all the books I have reviewed - most probably because they were all written by Black Women - but I related so much to this book! In fact, I DMed the author, Thenjiwe Mswane to ask why she stalked me because the protagonist, Makhosazane, is me!

Thenjiwe is an incredible writer. She weaves simple sentences together so well that they transport you into the story, almost changing your immediate surroundings as the story progresses. I imagined myself on a hill, sitting under the hot KZN sun on a bright day and watching life go on as one does. I smelled the sterile odour of the hospital, felt the soft blankets and heard the little coos babies make when she described Nonhle’s birth, and in my throat, I felt the lump you get when faced with the hurt and anger that comes from a mother wound. I saw the bright light that surrounded the inquisitive, smart little Makhosi, and in the same way, felt the environment become as dark as her res room, curtains drawn, windows unopened for days when she grew up and saw the world for what it was.

The pages of this book became a mirror. And only not because I too was an inquisitive, smart little daddy’s girl, or because my parents also work in law enforcement. It’s not even because of my close ties with Pietermaritzburg, or my time at UCKAR where I too was sexually assaulted by someone who would never do that on a single bed in a res named after some colonial figure. It is all that, and how like Makhosi I spent the better part of my teenagehood and early 20s angry. Mostly at my mother. At some of her choices, and the ones she didn’t make. I knew better, more. And I wanted that for her. This book came into my life when I am working on that mother wound and through my series with my grandmother, I am seeing the generational cycle. How we silently pass that wound to each other. I put this book down with a greater understanding of how to receive love from someone who has had to survive poverty, udlame between the ANC and IFP, the training academy, marriage, SAPS, being the firstborn daughter who has had to lay down so everyone after her can climb on her shoulders in pursuit of a better life for themselves and future generations. To receive love from someone who for the most part, has only known survival.

I too have my Nonhle. Who like Makhosi, I want to protect. I want to shield her from the darkness of this world, carry her through it so she does not walk the same thorny path I did - pick amajikjolo wakhe so she doesn’t pricked. But that’s not how the world works. It is only through her own journey up the hill and into the bushes that she will learn how to navigate them. To get the darkest, juiciest jikjolo without getting thorns stuck in her pants. I also have my Mamncane, who in her own way also lives in London. I hope to show up for, and carry her as she does me, and I hope to do that before using spices that are only found in Indian shops in place of the sandwiches she requested.

All Gomorrahs Are The Same has triggered and healed me all at once. It is a simple story, written in simple language that begs you to go inside yourself, to the place that hurts, while also beckoning you outside of yourself, to realise that no Gomorrah is Gomorrah-er than the next. And maybe that does not make it easier to navigate your Gomorrah, but it offers comfort. That there are people there to hold space for you.

Thenjiwe is an incredible writer. How she brings these characters and places to life needs to be studied! I cannot wait to consume more of her words.

The incredible gifted, Thenjiwe Mswane