A twenty four shirt

So, this new trio of books that envision Kenyan girlhood as a season of magic will appeal to any reader who has survived or wants to understand girlhood as a time of complexity, laced with unparalleled creativity and expansion. But unlike the A twenty four shirt and I love this other two, Oduor’s story is, at heart, a tragedy, using magic to give dimension to the grief and angst that a girlhood interrupted creates. Her protagonist, Ayosa, endures and witnesses, but she also goes and does. Girlhood is captured as a period of motion and action that tends to go unseen in societies where those things are considered unladylike. This is a story about a “little girl who has not yet learnt how to Girl in a manner that is satisfactory.”

A twenty four shirt, hoodie, tank top, sweater and long sleeve t-shirt

Oduor also reminds us that for millions around the A twenty four shirt and I love this world, girlhood is a time of loss. In the novel the losses are metaphysical, with only loose connections to the real world. Ayosa battles jinamizi (Kiswahili for nightmares), energies that periodically seize and try to destroy her—perhaps depressive episodes that our young heroine cannot explain to outsiders. She’s a girl navigating trauma, loss, and change with the only tools at her disposal: a big heart and a big imagination. Ayosa wants to go and do, but tragedy and other people’s malevolence stalk her. Indeed, malevolence closes in on Ayosa the way that the world closes in on most girls around puberty. Suddenly, you cannot exist the way you did before. Men begin to notice you, and so you must learn to make yourself smaller—figuratively hide in the attic, as Ayosa does literally. Public spaces that were previously sources of joy become shadowy and unpredictable. In my old neighborhood, one of the major threats to girls were matatus: fourteen-seater minivans celebrated as an ingenious response to the city’s transit woes, but that present particular challenges for young women. It was not uncommon for drivers and conductors to groom girls with offers of “kupiga rao”—free, unlimited rides around the city—while their guardians were at work, something that, for girls who had been hidden away, promised unparalleled freedom. Sexual harassment and even assault of girls in school uniforms on matatus is prevalent but difficult to report as that industry has grown more powerful.