Well, It’s a provocatIve title, and it’s a provocative book – though it would be unfair to suggest that Siya Khumalo’s sole aim is to provoke.
Like many memoirs, this one is also a taking stock of The Life So Far, in this instance (mainly) the author’s struggle to reconcile his somewhat unconventional religious instincts with his unruly sexual instincts.
Like many young men uncertain of their sexual identity, the young Khumalo decides that God’s not on his side of the problem: “God and the homophobes had different ways of inflicting their violence, but they belonged to the same WhatsApp group and he was the administration.” In short, since he believes he loves God, how is he to reconcile this love with his love of men?
To over-simplify a complex process, Khumalo engineers this accommodation by redefining God in his own image, through the surprising feat of incorporating, in a very literal sense, God into his more ecstatic encounters with a young man called Daniel: “The first time he was inside me, Daniel gritted his teeth, his lips a rectangle of flesh and perfectly symmetrical teeth. He was so sorely beautiful I was emboldened to cross the chasm between heaven and earth to kiss the face of God.”
This story is from the October 2018 edition of Noseweek.
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This story is from the October 2018 edition of Noseweek.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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