From: Memory torn from its roots, excerpt from Antonella Sinopoli’s introduction to Sarah Lubala’s bilingual poetry collection (capovolte 2025, in collaboration with AfroWomenPoetry). Italian translation by Gaia Resta. We thank Maria Luisa Vezzali for alerting us about the book publication. Cover image is a photo of the poet.
There are surfaces and then there are depths. And the two often converge, even if only on the level of representation. This is the case with geographical maps: flat surfaces that nevertheless reveal contours, landscapes, and movements. So is Sarah Lubala’s poetry: a path traced on the surface of the page that slowly travels along roads where a story has passed, many stories; roads that bear witness to an event, pain, a farewell; roads that rise and fall, cross countries, lead to unexpected directions, sometimes unwanted ones, at other times ones that were pursued. All there, on the page, giving rise to a map of her journey. A unique one, that cannot be replicated. Like any human being’s journey.
A physical journey that entails walking, running, pausing, which may resemble surrender but it’s only more than aa single point connected to another and then to another yet. An intimate journey, despite the tears.
A love for one’s roots, despite everything.
Sarah Lubala’s geography is presented here in thirty-seven places. Such is the number of poems in this collection, and each one is a pause, a foot digging deep in the ground to try to understand, to explain, to communicate. To try to express the trauma of separation.
Sarah was born in what was still then the Republic of Zaire, which would be renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo just a couple of years after her family had fled to safety from the looming war.
She was just three years old and did not return to that new country until she was nineteen. In the meantime, there had been a civil war, dubbed the ‘First World War of Africa’ due to the large number of victims and regional players involved. A country blessed and tormented by countless mineral and natural resources: a scandalous geological bounty. And it is there, in the heart of a continent with a vitality that cannot be extinguished even by death, that Sarah was born, fled, returned, and continues to return in her imagination as a child, teenager, and then as a fully-grown woman. A nostalgic memory that has never faded, but rather has been enriched by the life stages and countries she has experienced in between, which include Ivory Coast, South Africa, Holland, Canada, London, and then back to South Africa, where she now lives. […]
Questions you are Likely to Hear in an Asylum InterviewWhere have you come from?Think of a country,lush-glazed and untouched.Now imagine yours is the shape of that country,the length of your bodya hungry man’s dream.Who harmed you or put you in fear of harm?Out there,terrors walk in men’s skins.Jackals at the door,long nights and dogged need,the stench of back roads in every bed.Why did they harm you?No woman belongs to herself,you are a borrowed thing –gold for the dowry,snatch of river-song,the shawl worn thin,fasting within their sights.Do you fear returning to your home country?Freedom is your heart in the emptiness of night.I pray to wake as a bird;a song of sinews and feathers,bright-winged and boundless,loosed by God. |
Domande che potresti sentire durante un colloquio per la richiesta di asiloDa dove sei arrivata?Pensa a un Paese,smaltato di verde lussureggiante e incontaminato.Ora immagina che tu abbia la forma di quel Paese,la lunghezza del tuo corpoil sogno di un uomo affamato.Chi ti ha fatto del male o ti ha fatto temere di riceverne?Là fuori,il terrore cammina nella pelle degli uomini.Sciacalli alla porta,notti lunghe e un bisogno tenace,il tanfo dei vicoli in ogni letto.Perché ti hanno fatto del male?Nessuna donna appartiene a se stessa,sei una cosa presa in prestito –oro per il corredo,stralcio di canzone del fiume,lo scialle consunto e sottile,a digiuno sotto i loro sguardi.Hai paura di tornare nel tuo Paese di origine?La libertà è il tuo cuore nel vuoto della notte.Prego di svegliarmi come un uccello;un canto di tendini e piume,con ali luminose e senza confini,liberata da Dio. |
Love, Again«I tell you this tobreak your heart,by which I mean onlythat it break open and never close againto the rest of the world.»— Mary OliverIn this waythe heart is broken, again.Mosquito at the windowtroubling the heat,tender bitepressed sore at the wrist.Slowly, again.Slow pain,slow bleed of honeyfilling this small cup.There are long walks, again;the sky in half-light,the barn swallows riding at dusk.Again, the earth hangs on nothing;again, we are caught;again, the quiet breathing of all things.Where does such knowledge come from?Thin love,scrawny thing,how do you do it?The hand reaches out again,you don’t bare your teeth.
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L’amore, di nuovo«Ti dico questo per
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Sarah Lubala is a Congolese-born, South Africa-based writer. Her family fled the Democratic Republic of Congo two decades ago amidst political unrest. They relocated first to South Africa, then the Ivory Coast, before returning to South Africa and settling in Johannesburg.
She has been twice shortlisted for the Gerald Kraak Award, and once for The Brittle Paper Poetry Award, as well as longlisted for the Sol Plaatje EU Poetry Award. She is also the winner of the Castello Di Duino XIV prize. Her work has been published in the Mail & Guardian, The Daily Vox, Brittle Paper, Apogee Journal, Entropy, and elsewhere.
Her debut collection published in 2022, A History of Disappearance, contains 37 poems and photographs by Julien Harneis, Bill Wegener, and others. Some of the themes addressed in the anthology include forced migration, displacement, xenophobia, gender, sexual violence, mental illness, memory, and remembering.
Antonella Sinopoli, journalist, has been covering Sub-Saharan Africa for years. She founded the AfroWomenPoetry project to “tell the story of the female universe in a changing Africa” through the poetic voices of women. She is the co-author of the podcast Parole in folle, which explores African poetry on mental distress, and co-organizer of the slam poetry and spoken word performance of the same name, featuring artists from across Africa.
She curated the collection of the first contemporary African poet published in Italy, Terre che piangono (Interlinea, 2023). She also curated the Italian edition of Congolese-origin poet Sarah Lubala’s collection, Una storia di sparizione (Capovolte, 2025). She is the author of the essay Black Sisters: Women and War in Sub-Saharan Africa (Infinito, 2025) and wrote White Arrogance: What Africans Say About What White People Think of Them (Quintadicopertina, 2017). She worked for years as an editor at Adnkronos and writes for Nigrizia and Valigia Blu. She lives between Italy and Ghana.
Gaia Resta is a translator and subtitle writer from English and Spanish, who also is a cultural events organizer. She is active in grassroots journalism platforms at an international level, and is part of the AfroWomenPoetry project.
