Meg Vandermerwe

The Woman of the Stone Sea

The woman Hendrik finds injured on a deserted beach is unlike anything this West Coast fisherman has ever pulled from the ocean. Where her legs should be, there’s a fishtail. Could this be one of the water maidens his wife Rebekkah spoke about before she walked into the sea, never to be seen again? Or is she the fish woman that the old isiXhosa people in the Transkei call ‘mamlambo’? As the strange being takes up residence in Hendrik’s home, nothing is as it seems. Whether he’s dealing with a figment of his grief, or a puzzle that will solve Rebekkah’s disappearance, Hendrik soon realises that the line between the so-called magical and the real is very fine.

Stories by South Africa-based Meg Vandermerwe, up and coming young writer, academic, teacher of creative writing.

Stories

This Place I Call Home

Ghost. Ape. Living dead. Young and albino, Chipo has been called many things, but to her mother – Zimbabwe’s most loyal Manchester United supporter – she had always been a gift. On the eve of the World Cup, Chipo and her brother flee to Cape Town, hoping for a better life and to share in the excitement of the greatest sporting event ever to take place in Africa. But the Mother City’s infamous Long Street is a dangerous place for an illegal immigrant and an albino. Soon Chipo is caught up in a get-rich-quick scheme organised by her brother and the terrifying Dr Ongani. Exploiting gamblers’ superstitions about albinism, they plan to make money and get out of the city before rumours of looming xenophobic attacks become a reality. But their scheming has devastating consequences. Set in the underbelly of a pulsating Cape Town, Meg Vandermerwe’s Zebra Crossing is an arresting debut and a bold, lyrical imagining of what it’s like to live in another person’s skin.

Meg Vandermerwe

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