REBECCA: Is that going to be in the paper, Miss?
MISS: You are assuming that girls who speak to their teachers as you do will be allowed to sit for their papers, Rebecca.
REBECCA: But, Miss, this is the only way you taught me to speak.
(Pause.)
MISS: What is that supposed to mean?
REBECCA: You’re the teacher, Miss, you tell me.
- Extract from 'Handsome Devil'
Genna Gardini is a writer based in Cape Town. She was featured as one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in 2013 and, later that year, won the DALRO New Coin Poetry prize. Her poetry has been published widely, most recently in The Common, Aerodrome and Prufrock magazine. Her short story “Trust Exercises” was published in Umuzi's anthology The Ghost-Eater and Other Stories.
Gardini wrote the plays WinterSweet and Scrape, both of which won Standard Bank Ovation Awards at the National Arts Festival. Her latest play, The Swell, will debut in Cape Town in November 2014. She co-owns Horses' Heads Productions with Gary Hartley and co-curated Walk: South Africa with Sara Matchett for The Mothertongue Project. Gardini has written extensively on art and literature for various publications, including the Cape Times, Art South Africa magazine and the Sunday Independent. She is currently completing her MA in Playwriting at UCT.
Contact Genna
Photo: Paris Brummer.
Gardini wrote the plays WinterSweet and Scrape, both of which won Standard Bank Ovation Awards at the National Arts Festival. Her latest play, The Swell, will debut in Cape Town in November 2014. She co-owns Horses' Heads Productions with Gary Hartley and co-curated Walk: South Africa with Sara Matchett for The Mothertongue Project. Gardini has written extensively on art and literature for various publications, including the Cape Times, Art South Africa magazine and the Sunday Independent. She is currently completing her MA in Playwriting at UCT.
Contact Genna
Photo: Paris Brummer.