Homing Pigeons: South African Fiction

“Homing Pigeons” is the first published work by South African writer Maxine Case. It is showcased in the 2005 anthology African Compass: New Writing from Southern Africa edited by J.M. Coetzee. This story was just the beginning for this accomplished young writer. Her accolades include the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book for her novel All We Have Left Unsaid.

In the winter of 2009-2010, Case spent three months as a writer-in-residence on Sampsonia Way as part of a partnership between City of Asylum/Pittsburgh and the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. Case is now persuing her MFA in Creative Writing at the New School in New York City.

Here Sampsonia Way magazine presents “Homing Pigeons,” both in English and Japanese. Yukiko Konosu’s translation originally appeared in Bungakukai magazine. This is the first time the English and the Japanese versions have appeared together.

Read “Homing Pigeons” in English

Read “Homing Pigeons” in Japanese

Read Yukiko Konosu’s afterword to “Homing Pigeons” in Japanese