Litnet

"Most of these stories are set in Botswana, which in itself is refreshing since there has been a scarcity of stories in that setting since the death of Bessie Head."

"Christianity might not own the Last Supper symbolism, but would the symbol have been able to gain so much power and presence without Christianity? Who today knows or remembers the Dionysian feast of the gods, except perhaps some lonely professor of ancient Greek mythology?"

"I find this fast-becoming-popular genre of interrogating history through filtered personal and family experience to be a very pleasing literary direction in our country. You’ll not see me complain if we eventually replace the political novel with it, because not only does it gently provide us with a platform to reckon with our (national) past, but it gives us tools for higher consciousness to map up our personal lives also, which is what literature is supposed to do."

"My guess is that the growing radicalism from the left will gain momentum, especially if things don’t get better. As it is now, they too are at sixes and sevens and have no workable solutions. Anger at the failures of the ANC and the betrayal of the revolutionary mandate is their only political fund. They will probably take the coming few years to unite, organise and consolidate before coming to take yet another bite out of the sinking leviathan."

"Mhlongo, through the character of Mangi, loves Johannesburg with the insane and obsessive love of a jilted lover."

"It is easy in South African politics to blame Zuma, the preterit king of the superfluous, while failing to understand that the fundamental root of our current problems is extreme inequality."

"The near north is a book of memory, about life and death, joy and sadness, spatial geography and the thinking and not thinking behind human settlements."

"The future of our political direction depends on those with enough courage to venture out into something new and convince the majority of eligible voters, who are in a stupor due to political choice despair. My friend counts himself among these, whom he amusingly terms the 'electile dysfunctions'."

"If you’ve loved the sparse ironic tone of Amor Towles’s A gentleman in Moscow, you’ll love Beyond the door of no return."

"It is not easy, waiting for fair sailing weather, permanently watching for the winds to turn."

"If there is anything in common between the rigour of the English boarding school system I grew up in and the staunch Calvinism of Afrikaners of, say, Stellenbosch University, it is the belief that young men in particular need to be toughened up to prepare them for life. It is the reason why, though known to authorities, these rituals and rites of passages are tolerated and ignored until they go too far, as they sometimes do."

"When he has a performance in Barcelona a middle-aged lady, Beatriz, who is a university lecturer, is assigned to care for him during his stay. He becomes obsessed with Beatriz, though she is married."

"I regard the fight for Afrikaans prominence – without seeking hegemony – as something that other African language practitioners should emulate."

"I wonder where South Africa would have been, had countries like Cuba, Ireland, Zambia, Angola or the Scandinavian nations not supported us against the murderous National Party’s apartheid regime."

"If, as an African in particular, you visit China or want to learn more comprehensively about the lives of Africans in China, buy Noo Saro-Wiwa’s Black ghosts. You can thank me later."