Collective Amnesia

How many abortions have fallen out of your mouthwhile counting the men in your life?Madness sits at the dinner table, too,saying grace with one eye open.--This highly-anticipated debut collection from one of the country's most acclaimed young voices marks a massive shift in South African poetry. Koleka Putuma's exploration of blackness, womxnhood and history in Collective Amnesia is fearless and unwavering. Her incendiary poems demand justice, insist on visibility and offer healing. In them, Putuma explodes the idea of authority in various spaces - academia, religion, politics, relationships - to ask what has been learnt and what must be unlearnt.Through grief and memory, pain and joy, sex and self-care, Collective Amnesia is a powerful appraisal, reminder and revelation of all that has been forgotten and ignored, both in South African society, and within ourselves.Collective Amnesia was awarded the 2018 Glenna Luschei Prizet, the collection was also named 2017 book of the year by the City Press and one of the best books of 2017 by The Sunday Times and Quartz Africa.