When the sun Goes Down and other Short

Stories from Africa & Beyond

Edited by Emilia Ilieva &Waveney Olembo

It is a piece of prose fiction aiming at the

unity of charecterisation, themes and
effects by focussing on a few characters
over a short span of time & concentrating
events so that they take a short time to
render (Mwangi , 2012).

SS is brief & dispenses with unnecessary

details
For precision, the genre focuses on a
decisive moment of life.
It presents a concentrated action to give the
reader a vivid snap short of life.
The novel is expansive than the SS. It
handles several themes & incidents in the
novel may span several years.

The plot of the SS is not complex. The pace

of the plot devt is quick as the narrator
avoids double plots & long digression.

It is a collection of writings written by

different authors and published in one book
in one book.
Eg anthology of poems, SS etc

1. Teach Mastery of the short stories

through
Silent reading
Loud reading
Question answer method especially qns set
at the end of the each ss.
Group discussion & class presentations.
Dramatize interesting episodes

Discuss the relevance of the title to what is

happening in the ss. How does the title
contribute to the understanding of the ss?

1st person narration (the I narrator) eg in

Twilight trek the narrator tells of his struggle
& attempts to leave his country for
imagined good life of the west.

Leading xter referred by You.

Eg the mirror & I stand here ironing eg I
wish you would manage the time to come in
and talk about your daughter---pg127

All knowing narrator

Can report on xters thoughts, feelings, their
action & what they say eg War of ears

A)Emigration & its problems eg

Twilight trek, Arrested development, leaving
(the last brain drain).
b) Environmental issues/ Global warming
Eg Tuesday siesta, Sandra street.
c) Gender issues eg
Law of grazing field, the bamboo hut, Two
stories of a house etc.

d) War and its Effects

War of the ears, white hands
e) Corruption and its effects
Arrested dev, leaving,

Flashback
Dream motif
Use of epistles eg war of ears, leaving
(email), arrested dev (sms)
Use of local dialect brings out authenticity
& local flavor.
Biblical allusion
Imagery-similes, metaphors, personification

Characters are participants in the events

presented in the story
We use adjectives to describe them. We get to
know ones character trait from (examples fro
law of Grazing field).
1. what they do (their actions in the story eg
modio, Aminas brother slaps her (violent)
2. What they say eg Amina calls Modio---you
devil (abusive)
3. What other characters say about the xter eg
we know Jama as lazy & cowardly from what
Amina says about him.
4.How the writer describes the character

BY Stanley O. Kenani

Story starts with the main xter, Francis

Zgambo in a cyber caf.
He receives an email from a lady called
Tatha. She had been fired from Malawi air
after Zgambo had written a negative
comment about her.

The narrator, aboard a Malawian Airline to

Johannesburg, having won a lottery, in a
drunken stupor writes an angry comment
about an air hostess who failed to serve him
with beer because his glass was still full.
This note finally hands the hostess, Tatha, a
dismissal.

Tatha has written an Email to the narrator

telling him about the import of his action
he has killed her dream. This trip, the first
and the last the narrator has ever made by
plane, was courtesy of a raffle he had won
an all-expense- paid to trip to Johannesburg
and two nights in the prestigious Parktonian
All-Suite Hotel in Dekorte Street, Partktown
and a one-thousand dollar shopping
voucher at West-gate Shopping Mall.

This win makes the narrator attain a celebrity

status of sorts in his village of Botolo, Lundazi
District Zambia. Everybody wants to associate
with him and a local singer has composed a song
about his flight. Indeed success has many
disciples. The narrator goes by road to Lusaka,
his first time to travel to the capital city where he
spends at the prestigious Hotel Intercontinental.
The following day he takes Malawi Air flight to
Lilongwe before connecting to Johannesburg.

In retrospect the narrator is regretful of his

action. Upon reading Tathas email, he feels
touched to an extent that he inadequately
sheds tears. This one mail seems to have
cost him a lot; 13 American dollars leaving
him with little to spend for the month. He
feels with Tatha and regrets having made
such negative statements about her. He
decides and sets out on a journey to take
back his comments.

The narrator is haunted by a guilty conscience.

Rather than retract his comments by email or
through a letter, he decides to travel to Malawi
to see the CEO of Malawi Airlines to retract his
comments about Tatha. He goes into great pains;
sells his South Africa possessions so as to travel
to Malawi to personally apologize to Tatha. His
resolve to physically retract his negative
comments is emboldened when Tatha fails to
reply to his mail offering apologies unreservedly.

The narrator arrives in Blantyre after a long

tiresome journey by road; with crammed up
transport system. This transport system is
bent on raking in profits at the expense of
human comfort.

At the CEOs office, the narrator comes face-to-face

with the dismissive office receptionists. He is made
to wait longer to see the Chief Executive. Office
telephones are for personal use and the
conversations that are carried on have nothing to
do with the core business. The CEO makes him do
the retraction in writing.

The narrator seeks out Tatha so as to personally

apologize. His encounter with Towera, Tathas
friend, does not make things better for him. He
accuses him of ruining Tathas life and this
aggravates his guilt. Towera takes him to Tathas
home in Chitawira.

The narrator is drenched in rain on her way to

Tathas house. When she opens the door, she
fails to let him in and accuses him of killing her
dream and sends him away in the rain. As he
turns to walk away, Tatha calls him back but he
refuses. Tatha then rushes after him. The two
walk in the rain before Tatha lets him go into
the darkness.

This experience remains edged in the narrators

mind. Years later, he realizes that Tatha is the
Kenya Airways Employee of the year.