A Hundred Silencesis the third collection of poetry by Gabeba Baderoon – recipient of the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry in 2005. In this new selection of poems the poet explores how every room has its own silences, its own memories and secrets. She speaks of the quiet, gnawing loneliness of hotel rooms in ‘Sleeping in hotels’, of the ache of longing and how sometimes ‘love is in the going away’. She also does not steer away from what is not said, from the silences between words, and how anger can spark ‘the taste of blood never too far … eyes watchful/heavy as bruises’. It is an eloquent, tender collection of poetry, affirming Baderoon as one of the most exciting new voices in South African writing.
