Zebib K. Abraham’s My Hit List

Zebib K. Abraham is a writer and psychiatrist. Her short work is published in Clarkesworld, The Rumpus, Fractured Lit, Fantasy Magazine, JMWW, and more. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow for the Reading Round programme in Edinburgh for 2024-2025. She is represented by Carleen Geisler at ArtHouse Literary.

Television: Shōgun 

I stumbled upon FX’s Shōgun while travelling, exhausted, and needing a new show to entertain me. Despite my weariness, I stayed up watching the first episodes of this riveting, emotionally devastating show. I’ve liked Game of Thrones and other historical dramas because of their sense of epic stakes and otherworldliness, and I found this in Shōgun. It’s a refreshing depiction of an entirely different cultural and political history outside of Europe. I fell in love with the rich array of characters; Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai, Tadanobu Asano, and Cosmo Jarvis, amongst many, give brilliant performances. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788316/ 

Film: Blink Twice

Going into Blink Twice, the expert debut feature from co-writer and director Zoë Kravitz, I didn’t really understand what the film was about or even what genre it was. This turned out to be part of the film’s brilliance. I, like the main characters, was disoriented and intoxicated by the film’s dreaminess and time jumps, its richly saturated cinematography, all concealing something that’s not quite right. The film follows two 20-something friends Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat) as they spontaneously fly with billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) to his private island for a raucous vacation that turns ugly. I’ve been really drawn to psychological horror thrillers lately, especially those with a social commentary; the very real injustices of the world are sometimes best processed through the surreal and terrifying.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14858658/ 

Art: El Anatsui at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh

A few months ago, I learned about El Anatsui’s work down a YouTube rabbit hole. I was excited to learn about an African artist; my own father started his own artistic practice when he lived in East Africa. Recently, I got to see El Anatsui’s largest ever UK exhibit at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh. Anatsui incorporates his experiences of Ghana, colonialism and cultural memory into massive pieces (somewhere between sculpture and tapestry) made of bottle caps. One of Anatsui’s works was hung in the courtyard of Old College, dynamically reflecting the Scottish light. His pieces mesmerized me: vast waves of metallic and primary colours reminding me of traditional cloths, the movement of time, memory, water and landscape.

Courtesy of El Anatsui. © El Anatsui. Photo: Gus Sarkode
https://www.trg.ed.ac.uk/exhibition/el-anatsui-scottish-mission-book-depot-keta

Book: This is Not America 

I’m still not sure how I feel about Tomiwa Owolade’s book, This is Not America (Atlantic Books, 2023), a daring, if almost impossible, polemic on the complexities of blackness in Britain. Owolade argues the American view of race is not applicable to Britain. I was fascinated by what Owolade was attempting to do in this book, even when I disagreed with him, and I found myself challenged and excited by someone trying to interrupt the expected conversations around race and blackness. My parents, like many East Africans, rejected ‘Americanization’ and perhaps problematically, the generalisation of blackness. As an East-African-American transplant to the UK, my understanding of my own black identity is complicated. Owolade wants to contend with racism but also transcend it; there is perhaps too much complexity for his thesis. Still, I also see a person attempting to work out his own identity: to be seen as a specific, full human.

https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/this-is-not-america/

Music: Tayla Parx

I discovered Tayla Parx through a random post on the internet, and became absolutely obsessed. Parx’s music satiated my desire for addictive pop music that I could play on repeat for days on end. I loved her well-constructed melodies, her experimentation, her soulfulness, as well as her distinct persona. Here was a black, queer woman who wore blue wings and colourful outfits, making unexpected, playful music. Her second album Coping Mechanisms (a standout) is a collection of bangers with unexpected beats and smooth vocals. Her latest album, Many Moons Many Suns, reminds me of the frothy delights of Taylor Swift, but with more grooviness and eclecticism.

https://taylaparx.com/

A favourite WritersMosaic Writer

My favourite WritersMosaic writer is Clementine E. Burnley. Burnley writes complex, hypnotic poetry which explores the rich details of homelands, ancestors, and the effects of migration and colonialism. Her writing pulls you into an exploration of memory and identity that is beautifully specific and imaginative.