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The Smell of Blood and Other Stories is the product of a years-long conversation between Caitlin Stobie and Kharys Ateh Laue about feminism, power, and narrative positioning. The stories follow the lives of mothers, daughters, schoolgirls, and sisters soon after the 1994 democratic elections, tracing their coming of age as women in post-apartheid South Africa. Voices in this collection flit in and out of focus as they navigate the everyday violence surrounding them. Together, they create a short story cycle that reflects on both privilege and trauma, on cherished memories and shame.
 

Published by Karavan Press
Cover artwork: Alison Jean Shaw 
Cover design: Monique Cleghorn
 

CAITLIN STOBIE is an author of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism. Her writing has won the Douglas Livingstone Creative Writing Competition, the Heather Drummond Memorial Prize for Poetry, and an Authors’ Foundation Award. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Leeds.
 

KHARYS ATEH LAUE is a writer and editor based in Cape Town. She is the author of Sketches, and has written for various literary journals, such as Pleiades, Isele Magazine, Brittle Paper. She is an Associate Lecturer at the University of the Western Cape.