Time had happened to my parents’ pain. The Pain had been worn down by the salts of loss in the washing of brine, the ebb and flow of sorrow. It had preserved the hurt in the recesses of their memories and had sealed it hermetically. It had economized their loss...

As a poet, Ms Verissimo is versatile as well as judicious in her use of literary mechanics to furnish poems with a fluid progression. Like the Free Verse poet she is, her style borders more on internal rhythm than rhyme and stanzas. And her stanzas, often uneven, neither mince nor maneuver words...

It was a good thing the Caine Prize people deemed it right to put out the shortlist on their website. I, like many handicapped literary enthusiasts, would have mastered story titles, perhaps fantasize about their text and waited till the clincher is announced late July. But instead, this year is better and by God, I have the five stories downloaded into my little laptop, all for my enjoyable consumption...