Dreaming in Color

An Own Voices story written by a Queer South African author, this coming-of-age/coming-of-queer story looks at navigating the confusion that is intimacy, sex, and identity.

In her debut novel, Dreaming in Color, Uvile Ximba explores with subtlety, humor, and probing insight the connections between the joyful reclaiming of pleasure and the healing of buried traumas.

As students at university of Makhanda, South Africa during the #RUReferenceList campaign, Langa and her lover Khwezi have a passionate and complex relationship. Puzzling gaps in her memory haunt Langa, yet her dreams are vivid with colors and symbols that hint at a nightmare of forgotten violations and losses. So many secrets—and Langa has had enough of secrets and silences. Who can she turn to? Her mother? Her grandmother? Khwezi? Or herself?

Dreaming in Color is Langa's story of coming out to herself, of discerning the history behind the closed door of conscious memory.

Uvile Memory Samkelisiwe Ximba is a writer and theater-maker. Her interests lie in issues affecting black LGBTQIA+ women in South Africa. She holds a BA Honors in Politics and International Studies and Dramatic Arts and is the co-founder of multimedia production, Thamba Creatives and her approach to her work is, "Why wait?"