Sign in

Nzeru Aquilar

@nzeru.bsky.social
59 followers 164 following 650 posts

cloudwatcher~ No Poison No Paradise out now: botsotso.org.za/product/no-poison-n…

PostsRepliesMedia
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
HAPPY VENUS RETROGRADE TO ALL THOSE WHO CELEBRATE. HERE’S A VENUS RX PLAYLIST I COMPILED ABOUT THREE YRS AGO. ENJOY! music.apple.com/za/playlist/...
music.apple.com
Venus Retrogade Music by Nzeru Aquilar Nsaí on Apple Music
Playlist · 85 Songs
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
google maps has restricted photo posting on desert border towns along the Orange River, & my tinfoil hat is tingling
001
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
music.apple.com/za/album/my-...
music.apple.com
my own fairytale by Klein on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 12 Songs
001
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
every Klein album a revelation
100
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ music.apple.com/za/album/rad...
music.apple.com
Radical Frame by Actress on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 8 Songs
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
every Actress album is a revelation
100
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
diminished carcerality is like the only upside to 3rd world psychiatry. you global north madafakhas have no idea how fortunate you are
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
i wish race weren't such a predictor in SA discourses but, damn, i knew what to expect when i began reading this essay; there were zero surprises. a variation of this essay gets written at least once a yr by the white centre-left
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
So primary is the trauma associated with the adoption of macro-economic orthodoxy and the “1996 Class Project” of market-oriented reforms that it functions as a kind of ur-text for the South African left. www.theideasletter.org/essay/not-ye...
theideasletter.org
Not Yet Tomorrow
On June 30, as anti-immigrant marches began across Johannesburg, a few hundred men set out from a decaying compound in Diepkloof, Soweto, carrying sticks and knobkerries. At their head was…
101
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"To be incorporated as a citizen in South Africa is to inherit the fear of the Black person that constituted its making. The 1994 settlement admitted the Black majority to a citizenship that had been built out of a fear of them, and left the fear in place."
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"[...] My answer is that South Africa is not a nation that happens to be racial. It is a racial-capitalist formation, a racial corporation, that happens to be a nation—and it first announced itself as such, in law, in 1910, four hundred years after Camissa. www.theideasletter.org/essay/hinge-...
theideasletter.org
Hinge of the Modern World
Chigumadzi agrees with Shoki that South Africa’s anti-immigrant politics channels material deprivation toward other, foreign, Black Africans, who are blamed for a crisis they did not create, but she a...
000
Reposted by Nzeru Aquilar
GroundUp News @groundup.org.za · 08/09/2026
The Lovedale Press printing house was established as a small printing press by the Glasgow Missionary Society in 1823. Over the years, it was a vehicle for black authors to publish their work. Read groundup.org.za/article/arti... by Alice Scott
groundup.org.za
Artists try to save Lovedale Press’s 200-year legacy
The printing house is battling to keep its doors open
002
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"The ANC’s project was not to dismantle racial capitalism but to democratize it—to allow a Black elite to participate in the structures that apartheid had reserved for whites. This project has succeeded for the elite and failed for the masses."
000
Reposted by Nzeru Aquilar
Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 09/09/2026
this is what I mean by the chronic worldbuilder's god complex. the scut work of sentences can always be outsourced to some mere demiurge
519142
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"The migrant becomes the scapegoat not because apartheid’s legacy has ended but because it has been so thoroughly internalized that it no longer appears as a legacy at all..." www.theideasletter.org/essay/agains...
theideasletter.org
Against Post-Post-Apartheid
Kagoro disputes Shoki’s characterization that a “post-post-apartheid” era has dawned in South Africa, challenging the idea that the emergence of a new political language means the country has entered ...
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
[...] If surviving apartheid is what confers membership, the person who was never subjected to it cannot be naturalized into the nation, whatever their legal status. African migrants are not overlooked in modern S. A’s founding story; they are its constitutive outsiders..."
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"The Truth and Reconciliation Commission consolidated this sentiment by converting a selective reading of the past into a national narrative in which belonging was indexed to apartheid’s wounds [...]
100
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"The idea that the rest of the continent was a zone of chaos and dysfunction was constitutive of the idea of South Africa itself, which understood itself as orderly and modern by contrast." www.theideasletter.org/essay/post-p...
theideasletter.org
Post-Post-Apartheid
Anti-immigrant politics in South Africa has been dismissed as being manufactured, conspiratorial, or yet another eruption of the xenophobic violence the country has seen before—but, Shoki argues, thes...
100
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
for later. when the brain fog lifts: www.theideasletter.org/issue/south-...
theideasletter.org
South Africa Agonistes - The Ideas Letter
Thirty years ago, South Africa was heralded as a harbinger of a just and non-racial order. After decades of a criminal, repellent regime, Nelson Mandela’s ascension to the presidency and…
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
*sigh* how many ‘i’m from LA’ albums is Blu gonna make?
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
the biweekly reminder of just how irredeemable this country is: iol.co.za/news/south-a...
iol.co.za
Full house for 'Dr Death': AfriForum event on Basson's apartheid-era project sells out
Tickets for an AfriForum event featuring former apartheid military doctor Wouter Basson have sold out ahead of Friday’s talk on Project Coast, the secret chemical and biological weapons programme.
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Newtown, Johannesburg
Poster. Text reads, ‘Abolish borders. Defend migrants. Refuse xenophobia.
Posters on a wall.
011
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
fly high 💓 www.buzzlifenews.com/2026/08/25/s...
buzzlifenews.com
Sol ‘Bra Sol’ Rachilo remembered as a pioneer who gave South African stories a voice
South Africa’s creative industry is mourning the death of veteran actor, playwright, poet, drama teacher and cultural activist Solomon “Sol” Rachilo,
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
herri 13 is out herri.org.za/13/
herri.org.za
Issue #013
Decay Without Mourning, future thinking heritage practices is an issue of herri filled to the brim with productive rot and generative mould. Gloves on and hold your breath…
010
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
my mining town lovers say they miss me & that i should come back. one even wants to organise a job for me in the mines 🤭🤭🤭
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
If you’re in South(ern) Africa, you can purchase my short novel here: botsotso.org.za/no-poison-no...
botsotso.org.za
No Poison No Paradise by Nzeru Aquilar Nsaí
In this seminal novel of conflict and attempted reconciliation, we follow Kitso whose father had expelled him from the family home in Soweto on account of his youthful homosexual encounter with The…
065
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Penultimate day at the mining town. On a full moon. Serving my notice period. While starting ssris. LOL
Full moon rise at a mining town mall parking lot
020
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
perfect song of the day~ youtu.be/pUjTO8qUQZw
youtu.be
crystalize
YouTube video by Kelela - Topic
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
anyways, my short novel will be out soon in South Africa. this is the cover
Paperback cover for my novel No Poison No Paradise (by Nzeru Aquilar Nsaí). It features a blurred city skyline.

Back cover text:

‘Our bodies, slick with oil, slow-slide on each other, and I float on, so enshrouded by a blissful haze that I don't feel it when he bursts - when he presses his hands around my neck, I think, wow, I've always wondered what this feels like; it is only as he squeezes harder and I am forced to open my eyes and 1 am met by his grimace - and behind him, his wife's face, ten times larger, looking down on us as though to say, "Serves you right for thinking you can get away with fucking my husband on my bed," - that it becomes apparent what his intentions are.’
021
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
& all the rappers who keep me in love w/ the word. & etc.
100
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
& shout out to Maryse Condé (I lifted some ideas from Heremakhonon and Crossing The Mangrove) & Bae Suah + Deborah Smith (I lifted some ideas from Untold Night and Day) & Yu Hua + Allan H. Barr (I lifted some ideas from Cries in the Drizzle) & Mxolisi Nyezwa’s poetry…
100
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
anyways, shout out to Paul Mendez (subject matter) & Noor Naga (narrative technique). i swear i only found out about your works after i was done w/ mine.
100
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
wrote a short novel & thought i was doing all these innovative things. & while busy w/ later drafts, i other writers had the same ideas 😂😂😂
120
Reposted by Nzeru Aquilar
Deep Vellum @deepvellum.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Luis Goytisolo, the author of ANTAGONY and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, has passed away at the age of 91.
072
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Author copies arrived at my parents’ house while I’m three hours away at soul-crushing nine-to-five
Delivery box of my short novel titled No Poison No Paradise
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026...
dailymaverick.co.za
What it feels like to flee SA for your life as a documented foreigner
At least 74 Zimbabweans fled Mossel Bay in early June following the killing of foreign nationals. One of them told us his story. …
064
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
“You turn on the radio in South Africa, and all that’s being said is ‘illegal immigrants, illegal immigrants, they’ve done this’. Over and over again [...] You end up turning off the radio because they are talking about you. & I am not even an illegal immigrant! I have my passport, I have my visa!”
193
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
tfw it’s too late to save your job. surprised i lasted so long.
000
Reposted by Nzeru Aquilar
GroundUp News @groundup.org.za · 08/07/2026
More than 50,000 immigrants have fled South Africa since the wave of xenophobia started last month, according to the Border Management Authority. Read groundup.org.za/article/more... by Bernard Chiguvare
groundup.org.za
More than 50,000 immigrants have fled SA
38,000 people have quit the country via Musina since the wave of xenophobia started
132
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
no words. www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026...
dailymaverick.co.za
Terror and tears as Malawians are forced to abandon their lives in SA
With fears mounting over March and March’s anti-immigrant deadline, Malawian migrants prepare to depart South Africa, caught in a whirlwind of anxiety and urgent repatriation efforts.…
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
“It was colonialism and apartheid that made us poor. It was the ANC that kept us poor. It is the Government of National Unity that is trying to pass legislation that would criminalise the struggle for land and make it easier to evict us.”
011
Reposted by Nzeru Aquilar
GroundUp News @groundup.org.za · 26/06/2026
Lesotho’s foreign affairs minister, Limpho Tau, says South Africa has a moral obligation to help lift Lesotho out of poverty because of historical injustices that contributed to the kingdom’s economic underdevelopment. Read groundup.org.za/article/leso... by Sechaba Mokhethi
groundup.org.za
Lesotho seeks compensation and economic support from South Africa
Foreign affairs minister Limpho Tau lists land dispossession, migrant labour and apartheid-era raids as historical injustices
041
Reposted by Nzeru Aquilar
ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/06/2026
The U.S. says Africans’ health data shared under humanitarian aid deals will be aggregated and anonymized, but the State Department’s demands have sparked an outcry in Africa and raised concerns that the data could be misused or exploited.
propublica.org
“Digital Colonialism”: U.S. Demands to Access Africans’ Data Raise Privacy, Sovereignty Concerns
The United States is requiring access to health data as part of lifesaving aid deals with African countries. The U.S. says the data will be aggregated and anonymized, but privacy experts fear the info...
11366189
Reposted by Nzeru Aquilar
Cinema Rediscovered @cineredis.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Curated by film critic Mosa Mpetha, supported by the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre, African Jim was the first South African film made for Black audiences. Thu 23 July 14:00 is the UK Premiere of a 4K restoration by UK-based R3store Studios. www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/1408...
watershed.co.uk
UK Premiere: African Jim (Jim Comes to Jo'burg)
An important milestone of Black South African cinematic history that lives on in cultural memory, African Jim introduced the singular jazz singer and activist Dolly Rathebe to the big screen.
064
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
more cloudwatching w/ trees—
A tree (white-stinkwood), the sky, and some clouds
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
iol.co.za/news/opinion...
iol.co.za
‘The amabutho are back’: Abahlali warns of rising xenophobic violence
Abahlali baseMjondolo secretary-general Thapelo Mohapi has warned that growing anti-migrant mobilisation in KwaZulu-Natal risks escalating into broader ethnic violence, drawing parallels with the poli...
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
all these years later & i'm still haunted by this little gem: youtu.be/Jqsz4mvtkew?...
youtu.be
The Golden Wolf of Balolé | Aïcha Chloé Boro | Burkina Faso | 2019 | 65 min
YouTube video by Afri Docs
000
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
only seven, unfortunately
021
Nzeru Aquilar @nzeru.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
South African leftists have spent the past three weeks trying to ‘defend’ South Africa’s reputation, & all i can do is sigh
000