Compiled from the best of the two hit e-books Lockdown and Lockdown Extended, that Melinda Ferguson launched, back to back during the first four weeks of lockdown, as well as including new essays by the likes of New Frame's Richard Pithouse, Kharnita Mohamed and Carsten Rasch, the work brilliantly tries to make sense of a world held hostage by a virus.
Sentenced to Lockdown, regarded as "non-essential", a group of 40 South African writers get together in a virtual Corona Collective, to pen The Lockdown Collection. This historical gem showcases a list of South Africa's most celebrated writers, disruptors and thinkers, including: Sisonke Msimang (Always Another Country), Fred Khumalo (Bitches Brew), multi-disciplinary poet, Lebo Mashile and Pumla Dineo Gqola (Rape A South African Nightmare). There's the comic genius of Ben Trovato (Durban Poison) and Everyday Zulu Melusi Tshabalala, while the likes of Khaya Dlanga, Dudu Busani-Dube, Rahla Xenopoulos and Haji Mohamed Dawjee dig deep to find true meaning in the time of Corona. Profound, insightful, angry, tender and searing, at times the work is even hilarious.
"I jotted down a list of dream authors and decided to take my chances to see whether any one of them would agree to go on this mad venture with me," says maverick publisher, compiler and contributor, Melinda Ferguson, "I hoped a few of them would say "yes". Turns out all 40 of them did."
The book opens up with Melinda Ferguson's piece titled "Wounded Healers". It was a day after the President announced that South Africa is in a state of disaster. The author compares herself to the disaster that the country was facing. A week later the president announced a nationwide Lockdown. And another. And another. It sounded like prison- she says.
Melinda opens up about her journey of overcoming addiction. She's been clean for over 20 years and still counting. The author describes her lockdown experience as almost a de javu to the time she spent in rehab. Not only did she struggle with addiction but suicidal thoughts and depression. It is during this time that she realized she need a meeting with the Narcotics Anonymous where she can sit in a circle with her tribe, hug people and get the monster out of her head. She believes in the NA because it helped back in 1999 and indeed the meetings saved her life when she was broken and destitute. It is during this time that she sent a friend a text to find out if there's any online meetings he knows of. Within few minutes her inbox was flooded with links and schedules of NA meetings hosted on Zoom - an online chatroom app with usage that skyrocketed in 2020.
Melinda's biggest inspiration is her family but she says she connect more with addicts - her tribe. "During the lockdown, I chose to watch less current affairs news channels, instead I watched the screen with my tribe who are scrambling for answers to their lives, fixing themselves, passing it on, for free. It was a new world of virtual recovery. Us humans. Us wounded healers" she said
Melinda's piece reminds me of the days I ran out of cigarettes during the lockdown. I felt like quitting but the timing and the load of the pandemic was too much. This piece carries so much power to a reader who struggles with addiction. Lockdown collection is book consisting of different lockdown experiences by different writers. This book will leave you moved with how a lot of people were not coping as we were all trying to navigate our lives into the new normal. It is one of the historic collection that will serve as reminder to the coming generation of the pandemic that came with corona virus.
You will find a beautiful piece by Khaya Dlanga about loosing his little brother during the lockdown. It was an emotional rollercoaster. Dealing with a loss of a family member has always been a sad experience but burying your loved one during the lockdown was very difficult for Khaya, the lockdown experience for khaya was very emotionally draining as he pours his heart out on his piece called " Loss in a time of Corona Virus.
Two days before the National lockdown, Khaya's brother took his life. This meant Khaya and his family had to organise a memorial service and funeral under the new lockdown regulations. Khaya says he had never known loss like he was about to. He became intimate with it. Khaya describes how everything in his house reminded him of his little brother because they lived together.
"Every evening I go to the kitchen to take my medication. I see him again in empty containers of the pills he filled his stomach with, in order to end his life that had given him a pain so great, he could not share me. I can't bring myself to throw them away because in some weird twisted way, I feel his memory will remain if I dont get rid of them" says Khaya in his essay
Khaya's piece is very raw and if you have read his previous work, you'd know how the author can turn any situation into humor. Even though there's some light moments, I couldn't burst into a loud laughter like I always do when I read a typical Khaya Dlanga's piece. I first wanted to cry because I could feel the pain in his choice of words as he explain how he had to tell friends and families to not attend the funeral due to the pandemic the world is facing.
This is a book for every household to keep in their book shelf. It's a collectable for a family sharing. These are very real experiences and they are relatable too. The pandemic had so much impact on everyone and if you need a piece to read about the experience that are similar to what you went through during the lockdown, trust me you will find one or two in this book. It is a must read!