The Swimming Lesson And Other Stories

This short-story collection by well-known poet, author, and playwright Kobus Moolman is a volume of originality with much to recommend it. Written across a range of creative styles, voices, contexts and genres, each singular story holds its place with slice-of-life impact, drawn with the keenly observed detail and insight that has come to characterize Moolman's work.

A major strength of this collection is its precisely noted and rendered detail. Whatever the themes-whether the dilemmas of being differently abled; trapped in lower-income constraints; or born female in an abusively gendered world-they are relayed with authenticity. There is a strongly visceral component to the stories, with the body and its various vulnerabilities, captivities, and seductions featuring in many of them.

Some pieces broaden out, both creatively and topically, to explore less obvious facets of staying afloat. Some are strongly experiential, others venturing into the fantastical world of the macabre or surreal. All relay with convincing certitude the human strivings of the trapped lives or trapped hearts they represent.

The Swimming Lesson and Other Stories is a collection that stands out for its consummate crafting; its frank, often uncomfortable treatment of taboo topics; its creative risk-taking; and its skilful recreation of worlds gone by, which yet leave their aftershocks. Author Kobus Moolman has published widely and has won numerous awards, including the 2015 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry and the Ingrid Jonker award.

In 2013 he was the Mellon Writer in Residence for three months at Rhodes University. [Subject: Fiction, Creative Writing, Literature]