The short story will always hold a special place in my heart. This year, To The Volcano and Other Stories spoke to me particularly as it explores the tenuous and tenacious relationships people have with the South. Set mostly in the southern hemisphere and illuminated by the legendary southern light people travel vast distances to experience, the stories investigate the complexities involved in our engagement with this part of the world. They are about seeing, interconnectedness and about the shifting of perspectives. To The Volcano does not eschew tough topics such as trauma, colonialism, illegal migration, ageing and loss, but Boehmer's exquisite, considered prose elucidates them with a tenderness I found deeply touching.

To The Volcano and other stories - Elleke Boehmer
🌟🌟🌟⭐️⭐️ (3.5/5)
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It’s been a long time since I’ve read an anthology of short stories so this definitely made a nice change of pace!
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Every story in this anthology is different. Luanda struggles to find her place in Oxford University. Lise feels lost in Paris. Evelina ignores her family to follow her love to New York. Anne fills her heart with husband after husband. And, in the titular story, Bob loses himself in a South African volcano. Whether binged or spread out over many days, this anthology is worth the read.
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This anthology is about a journey. A journey from Australia to France, from Sierra Leone to Oxford, from South America to New York. It’s about the journey of self-acceptance, of losing yourself, of finding a love. Every story is unique but they all share the same elements at their core. I have some standout favourite short stories: Paper Planes, about a woman with dementia; the story of Anne and her husbands; Evelina and her journey to New York stood out to me; as did Luanda’s stay in Oxford. Every story was easy to read and the characters were vivid enough to be memorable after only a few short pages. It’s not a book you’ll read again and again but it’s a book that teaches you and a book that you’ll enjoy.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know that I’m relatively new to reading short stories, but To The Volcano by Elleke Boehmer is the best collection I’ve read yet!
Rating: 4/5🌟 .

These stories delve into characters in different continents from the perspective of the Southern Hemisphere. It’s tricky to review an entire collection here, but the author insightfully explores past traumas, disappointments, dreams, ambitions and self-knowledge. The language is richly evocative and loaded with sensory information, in particularly vivid, striking colours. Some of these stories were very cinematic and I’d love to have read on beyond their final pages- the sign of a good short story?!

The three which stood out for me were:
🌋The titular “To The Volcano”, in which a university group has a surreal and impactful experience whilst visiting a volcano crater
🌋 “The Mood that I’m In”, about a serial widow - is she a gold-digger?!🤑
🌋”South, North”, about a young woman excited to be backpacking in Paris, and she has some unnerving experiences. It reminded me of the vulnerability I sometimes felt whilst studying in Madrid, and went travelling or walking home at night alone; with my Celtic colouring I was a bit more conspicuous and was mildly but disconcertingly harassed on a few occasions. I know this could (and does) happen anywhere, but I was alone and far from home like the character in the story. (Most of my experiences were amazingly happy, I should add!)

Thank you very much to @myriad_editions for this giveaway prize. Myriad is a smaller publisher which supports new and emerging authors. They publish award-winning literary fiction, graphic novels and political nonfiction, and I already have a couple more of their books lined up to read!

Arresting, intriguing, luminous and seductive are some of the adjectives used on the cover of Boehmer’s anthology of tales. All of which could equally describe what has become known as ‘the global south.’ Born in South Africa but based now in the UK, this professor of World Literature of English has, over and above an exquisite grip on how to succinctly, simply and sensitively put across a scene, a whole soul or the smallest of gestures, a connection to The South that defines her. And in the case of this book, guides her stories, all of which have links to countries below the equator – Argentina, Australia, South Africa etc. She talks of the distinctive ‘southern light’ that bathes the hemisphere and inspires its writers. But if this sounds fey, her stories describe people who are utterly real, raw and flawed. There’s a frisson between two supermarket shelf-packers, a boy making paper planes for his dementia-ridden gran, tour-guide Evelina with an airport fetish and the communications officer whose life is changed by a field trip To The Volcano, title story. Both every day and yet so very washed in undercurrent, these stories are haunting and compelling.

TO THE VOLCANO And Other Stories ~Elleke Boehmer

I’d not heard of Elleke Boehmer before To the Volcano turned up, despite the five novels she has under her belt. She’s also the author of an acclaimed biography of Nelson Mandela not to mention editor of the bestselling 2004 edition of Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. I knew about the latter from Waterstone’s Books Quarterly days but had failed to make the connection. Now an Oxford academic, Boehmer was born in South Africa which explains why so many of her stories emanate from the southern hemisphere.

The opening piece sets the tone for much of this collection with a tale of homesickness in which a young African student’s infectious laugh gradually fades away in an unwelcoming ancient British university town. Lise’s dream of visiting Paris, her backpack stuffed with French classics to guide her, is dulled by rain and unwanted attention which sends her thoughts heading for home in ‘South, North’ while ‘Evelina’, one of my favourites, sees a young Argentinian travel guide, due to join her fiancé in New York, lingering in the airport until the last minute, reluctant to board the plane. Closely linked to the yearning for home, ‘Supermarket Love’ is a tale of cultural confusion as a young Afghan Muslim shelf-stacker writes a letter in her head to an Australian agony aunt about her crush on a colleague, knowing she can never send it. ‘Synthetic Orange’ also calls to mind refugees when the gift of a bracelet made from the brightly coloured vests worn by migrants brings back memories of two shocking events for a woman on holiday in Spain.

Many of Boehmer’s stories are about people at a decisive point in their lives, a time to turn backwards or forwards, but several explore ageing a particularly poignant example of which is ‘Paper Planes’ in which an old woman sits in her nursing home bedroom playing with her grandson, or rather watching him play. ‘The Mood I’m In’ takes a rather different view of growing old as a widow, dry-eyed at her previous husbands’ funerals, finds herself in tears at the fourth.

These are insightful, intelligent stories full of characters pursuing their dreams but often meeting with disappointment, unable to make a decisive move, pulled back by a longing for home or an inability to escape their past and often left lonely as a result. An enjoyable collection, written with a quietly perceptive insight.