What was it about The Yearning that has South Africans looking for copies of the book? “I think there is something happening where black female writers are proving that maybe you need a black woman to tell a black woman’s story,” Mashigo says.īut she’s not sure.
This was after I had been told that, if you sell 1 000 copies of a local novel, it’s a big deal - because apparently most South African fiction books only sell 600 to 1 000 copies in their lifetime.” “I got an email from my publisher who said it was time for a reprint. But Mohale Mashigo has blown that belief out of the water she is preparing for the second print run of her debut novel, The Yearning. We need our own unlikely super heroes.South Africans apparently don’t read, least of all local fiction. I hope that Mashigo will turn some of those short stories into a series of books. He read my first book and encouraged me to get it published," Mashigo said. "It's so funny to be friends with one of my inspirations. The 35-year-old author said she is inspired by the likes of Zakes Mda, Tony Morrison and Tsitsi Dangarembga. I started writing my first book at work instead of doing my job." "When I moved to Cape Town, I worked in advertising and I hated everything about the job. I figured that this was a good reflection of her personality as she has never been one to follow the rules. Mashigo said her book is separated into three parts: the good, the bad and the colourful because she is unable to stick to the structures of paragraphs. Mashigo successfully humanises stories of people who would otherwise be called witches in our communities. The book is a wonderful introduction to reading futuristic tales with African protagonists. "When I read Nervous Conditions, I realised that black people that are like me can also be in books," Mashigo said. The first time I read a book about black people was when I read The Color Purple. "I first started reading books in school when I would take books out from the library.
"I grew up in a house with no books," the Soweto-born writer said.īut she said she was lucky enough to have a father who realised her interest in reading and bought her interesting magazines to try and quench her thirst for literature. Dressed in a warm fuzzy jersey in the first heat wave of the season, award-winning author Mohale Mashigo made an interesting sight after arriving in Johannesburg from a cold Cape.Ī ghost of a smile appeared on my face as I realised the vibrant author was also like the intruders she wrote about in her book filled with futuristic African tales of protagonists and heroes that do not seem to quite belong.
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