Draft II: Of Her and Her Bridge She wasn’t famous, not really. At least, not in the way the world uses that word. She didn’t win any...

I remember a girl once, Nyiramaso, I think her name was. She had a tiny, upturned nose, a laugh like river water, and the audacity of happiness. One day, a teacher measured her. The next week she was reassigned to a different dormitory. A month later, she disappeared from school entirely. Years later, I saw her name printed on a memorial wall. Not for what she did. But for what her nose refused to be.

This essay offers a reflective exploration of exile as both a lived condition and a critical framework, drawing on personal experience, aesthetic transformation, and intellectual formation following migration from Malawi to Canada. It traces how displacement reoriented modes of listening, reading, and critical thought, catalyzing a shift from hip-hop toward jazz, punk, and Black radical traditions.