100 Papers; a collection of prose poems and flash fiction

by Liesl Jobson

Liesl Jobson’s collection is aptly termed “flash fiction” or “prose poems”. It comprises 100 short pieces that are beautifully impressionistic - the literary equivalent of a well-times photograph. Jobson was born in Durban, South Africa. Her poetry and prose has been published in journals and anthologies in South Africa and abroad. She won the People Opposing Women Abuse women’s writing poetry competition in 2005. She as also awarded a community publishing project great from the Centre for the Book under the auspices of the National Library of South Africa in 2007. This is her debut collection which won the Ernst van Heerden creative writing award for 2006 from the University of the Witwatersrand. She is a freelance writer, photographer ad bassoonist.

179 pages, paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[LeAnne · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Huh?" my husband says. "I don't get it."

"The stories are all so sad," my grown daughter says, but they aren't all. "An Owl at my Ankle" could be the two of us.

These short shorts (most only one to two pages or less) are slices of South African life with the warts left on. Many involve broken families; some describe mental illness; several include explicit sexuality, mostly between women. They are all beautifully written and masterfully constructed. As far as I am concerned this closing paragraph to one of the stories is worth the price of the book: Can HIV be contracted through tears? I have no open lesions through which the virus might pass, just a hole in my heart the size of a teenager's coffin.

[Moira Richards]

http://www.redroom.com/blog/moira-ric...