Description
In late-1940s Bulawayo, a construction worker, Fumbatha, finds his life upended by love for Phephelaphi, a much younger woman whose presence unsettles the boundaries of age, desire, and belonging. Told with lyrical intensity and largely in the third person, the novel traces their relationship as it grows from attraction into a force that reshapes daily routines, private hopes, and the social world around them. As romance and longing collide with power imbalances and the pressures of a changing postwar society, the story becomes a meditation on intimacy, agency, and the costs of devotion. With Yvonne Vera’s distinctive, emotionally charged prose, this is a quietly devastating portrait of love’s beauty—and its capacity to burn.
Available Editions
paperback
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published Jan 1, 2000
151 pages
ISBN: 9780374291860
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Details
First Published
1998
Language
eng
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera.