Kagiso Lesego Molope

13-year-old Naledi witnesses her brother’s crime. That event makes it clear why she feels the need to betray him years later. Du Toit’s accent reflects the novel’s South African setting. You can hear young Naledi’s coy grins as she details her sheltered family life, which includes running a general store, going to private schools, and living in the glow of the bright star that is her brother Basi. Toxic masculinity lurks behind the coming-of-age antics, subtly revealing the many ways it damages women.… (mais)

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teen/adult fiction - rape culture in South Africa (TW: sexual agression and violence, rape, victim-shaming, racism); excellent narration by South African storyteller Jacqui Du Toit.

follows a young girl/woman from age 8 into adulthood as she learns about men and relationships, and how often women become victims while her family also deals with the pervasive racism of South African culture.

This story felt really real; I kept double-checking to see that it was a novel and not a memoir.… (mais)

This is a fantastic book, and should be much better-known than it is. Set in a township near Pretoria in the tumultuous 1980s, it tells the story of Tihelo, a young teenage girl living with her mum and older sister. At first she's no fan of the protests and disruption, only wanting to go to school so she can become a journalist and escape the township. However, the brutality of the apartheid regime is inescapable, and her need to defend and get justice for her loved ones pushes her into the resistance. It's a powerful story which goes to some dark places, and I think it gives a good insight into what South Africa was like at the time (at least, speaking as someone whose own knowledge of that time is cobbled together from year 11 Geography classes, conversations with my partner's South African family, and what I learned from the Hector Pieterson museum in Soweto). It's notable as a South African novel actually written by a Black person, which is bizarrely difficult to find considering the demographics of the country. And I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to get into reading novels about South Africa, as indeed it's been (BY FAR) the most engaging of all the ones I've read. Enjoyable, significant, and deserves to not be so obscure.… (mais)