Call and Response
Botswana

Call and Response

by Gothataone Moeng

Family & Heritage Contemporary Fiction 2023

Summary

Call and Response is a collection of nine short stories exploring the lives of ordinary families in contemporary Botswana as they navigate love, loss, tradition, and changing social expectations. Set between the rural village of Serowe and the capital city of Gaborone, the stories portray women and families negotiating the tensions between inherited customs and the desire for independence.

The collection introduces a young widow struggling with the expectations surrounding mourning, a teenage girl confronting the responsibilities of caring for a dying relative, and sisters whose romantic lives challenge their family’s expectations. Other stories explore infidelity, sibling rivalry, sexuality, and the complicated bonds that connect generations.

Through intimate portraits and richly observed everyday moments, Moeng reveals how private desires often conflict with public obligations. Her characters seek love, opportunity, and autonomy while remaining deeply connected to their families and communities. The result is a nuanced portrayal of a society balancing tradition with change, where ordinary conversations and family encounters reveal deeper questions about belonging, womanhood, and the meaning of a fulfilling life.

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Country
Botswana
Africa
About the author
Gothataone Moeng
Gothataone Moeng

Gothataone Moeng is a Botswana-born writer whose fiction explores family relationships, women’s experiences, cultural traditions, and the changing realities of contemporary Botswana. Born in Serowe, she draws on her familiarity with both rural communities and urban life to create intimate stories grounded in the country’s social and cultural landscape. Moeng has received several prestigious writing fellowships, including the Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Fiction at Stanford University, a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and support from the Tin House Summer Workshop. She also held an Emerging Writer Fellowship at A Public Space. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Mississippi. Her fiction has appeared in literary publications including American Short Fiction, One Story, Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and Oxford American. Her debut collection, Call and Response (2023), received critical acclaim for its lyrical prose, nuanced female characters, and sensitive portrayal of family life in Botswana. Through her writing, Moeng brings international attention to contemporary Botswana while exploring universal questions of love, identity, tradition, and belonging.

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Details
Published
2023
Author
Gothataone Moeng