Loud and Yellow Laughter

Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese’s debut collection of poetry Loud and Yellow Laughter, published by Botsotso, was awarded the 2018 Ingrid Jonker prize for poetry.

Busuku
Mathese’s entry was described by one judge as ‘completely original: the
presentation of family history as a play, in which the narrator is an
unreliable character’. The poet was praised for the ‘the mix of WW2
history, the narrator’s dilemmas about being adopted, and the way she
manages to weave these together without ever losing her balance or
falling into incongruity’. Another judge highlighted how Busuku
Mathese’s ‘memoir in the form of a collage… offers fragments in several
voices, some of them “reconstructed”. [The collection] ‘movingly
reflects the quest of the ‘The Girl Child’, as intimate ‘curator’ of
family memory and experience, to integrate the surprising puzzle that is
her current self’.
The original version of this collection was written as part of the
poet’s Master’s thesis in Creative Writing at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal.

A collection of 39 pieces, some mystical and
elliptical, some seemingly mundane snatches of prose-poetry that retain a
poetic intensity, together they create an atmosphere of nostalgia
tinged with a subtle yet matter-of-fact sadness. Accompanied by a series
of graphic images, made up of old photographic portraits and scenes of
natural beauty.