By David F. Rooney
Insignificant Lives by Nyasha (NP) Katedza is a slim volume of short stories that make for a very pleasing read on a cool and rainy evening.
The five stories that span this book’s 104 pages will surprise and delight the reader. It certainly captured and held my attention and I am, as staff at the library well know, a very picky reader.
I particularly enjoyed the neat little twist at the end of the very first story, Missing in Action. I don’t particularly like spoilers so I am not going to reveal the ending. Suffice it to say that I was completely blindsided.
Nyasha takes the reader on an unforgettable voyage of discovery in places as different as a middle-class North American suburb (Missing in Action) to modern Japan (The Obi).
Her title story, Insignificant Lives, will cause you to question human behaviour and the commercialization of human genomes.
Ms. Katedza will be speaking about her work — and perhaps about her upcoming novel, Re-Bound — during a presentation at the Revelstoke Branch of the Okanagan Regional Library on Friday, September 18, at 6:30 pm. If she is as interesting as her short stories this reading at the library should be very interesting.
Insignificant Lives is available through the library or at any bookstore that carries the work of BC writers.
Insignificant Lives by NP Katedza, Flame Lily Publishing, 104 pages, $19.99
