Short.Sharp.Stories is a platform showcasing established and emerging South African short story writers. For the 2025 anthology, Power: Short stories that light the dark, writers imagined “power” in fictional terms – how it influences and affects us, including political and personal power, and the ever-present issues of loadshedding.
In this Short.Sharp.Stories interview, Vuyokazi Ngemntu chats with Antoinette Ntuli, author of the short story “The scent of pap and skop”, a night-time fantasy journey through Joburg with “wheelbarrow women”.
Antoinette Ntuli is a mother, a S’thandwa Sami, a friend, a yoga addict, a cook and a general adventurer who embraces life with both hands. “The memories imprinted flow, or sometimes are squeezed, through my fingers onto the page.” She grew up in the UK, coming to South Africa in 1994. Occasionally she performs her poems, which erupt in moments of her heightened emotion. For many years, she was employed in public health, working for the National Health Service in the UK and for Soul City and the Health Systems Trust in South Africa. She is currently writing her life story.
What inspired you to write this story?
When I contemplated the theme “Power”, I immediately visualised the stupefying contrast between conditions in Sandton and those in the Alexandra township (Alex), less than a mile away – what economic power, or the lack of it, means in very concrete (or even cardboard) terms. My husband is a sculptor who has a studio on the edge of Alex. In his studio are several metal sculptures that have been carved from wheelbarrows and other workman’s tools. I began to muse on the power of art to change socioeconomic conditions. And thus the sculptures, already anthropomorphised with spade faces and hoe feet, began to peregrinate in my mind. I dreamed of them having greater agency and finding a way to be a spark for change.
The story is, for the most part, a literary rendering of contemporary Alex and Sandton, with the surreal addition of these wheelbarrow characters. Was surrealism a sort of bridge between the contrasting conditions of places like Alex and Sandton?
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I would describe my story as magical realism, because I am integrating fantastical elements into a realistic setting to help me reflect upon economic and cultural power.
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Indeed, I find the extreme contrast in South Africa – between the Cape Flats and Clifton, between Alex and Sandton – to be surreal. I’m not sure that the wheelbarrow women are surreal. Rather, I would describe my story as magical realism, because I am integrating fantastical elements into a realistic setting to help me reflect upon economic and cultural power.
The wheelbarrow women walk at night, which is almost dreamlike. I'm intrigued by your approach to storytelling and the cinematic flair with which you weave your sentences together. Did you go into some sort of altered consciousness to write this (tongue in cheek!)? Does your experience as a poet help you to get into a space where you are “beyond” the text?
Thank you! Ha, ha! If only! For many years, and only occasionally, I have written poetry. The writing I enjoy most could be called prose-poetry, by which I mean prose that is multilayered and soaking in images. Unfortunately, as our son keeps reminding me, dense language can impede the telling of a story. I am struggling with achieving the right sort of balance.
The crew of wheelbarrow women somehow reminded me of the Women's March of 1956. What cause are these feminist wheelbarrow women pursuing, and how does their plight relate to that of modern-day South African women?
The 1956 Women’s March was protesting the introduction of the infamous, racist “pass laws” for black women. The wheelbarrow women are fighting patriarchy and capitalism, and for their right to self-determination, all of which are intimately entwined with racism and are monumentally oppressive forces in the lives of modern-day South African women. The Warrior Queen of the Maroons and her companions knew that without the emancipation of women, there can be no true freedom. They believed in a “bottom-up” approach to building self-belief and prosperity in their community. Through being a catalyst for the residents of Alex to reconnect with their African histories and knowledge systems, they aim to extirpate the neocolonialism that plays such a forceful role in holding back progress in our beloved land.
Can you speak to the significance of the title, and its evocative nature?
In the global north, as well as among the wealthy everywhere in the world, so much is thrown away; there is so much waste. I was on a World Aids Day march in Khayelitsha some years ago, and we passed several stalls selling “skop”, as well as other cuts of meat often rejected, discarded as waste, by the prosperous. So, skop is a metaphor to me of wholesomeness, of a sustainable way of living. Pap is synonymous to me with staple South African fare. The “scent” of pap and skop is tantalising, for scent, by its very nature, is transient, ever-shifting. In this story, the scent is leading us in the direction of – towards the possibility of – change.
Your story could well be described as literary fiction. Was this something you were attempting to achieve?
I had to do a bit of research to find out what you meant by literary fiction! So, clearly I didn’t set out to achieve it, but I am definitely more interested in, and stimulated by, literary rather than genre fiction. I love genre fiction to escape from the world and relax, but the books that remain in my heart are definitely literary fiction.
What do you enjoy most about your writing process? And do you have any rituals that you use to “get into the zone”, when the words just aren't coming?
I love those moments when words and images fly directly from my soul to the page. The only poems I have written that I feel proud of have “written themselves”, often in the middle of the night. I have never (at least not yet) got up in the middle of the night to write prose, but it is absolutely the case that my most successful writing seems to arrive effortlessly in the world.
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I love those moments when words and images fly directly from my soul to the page. The only poems I have written that I feel proud of have “written themselves”, often in the middle of the night.
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I will never admit to the number of cups of tea I consume at my desk when trying to “get into the zone”. I make myself write for a set number of hours, even if I feel that what I am writing is not great. I know that there will be a time when I am able to “get into the zone”, to draw more deeply upon my creativity. When I get into that space, I edit and/or rewrite.
As this is your first short story published, is there any advice you’d like to share for early career writers who are still trying to figure things out?
I feel like an early career writer myself. This is actually the first short story I have ever written. I can’t quite yet believe how fortunate I am that it has been published! On 1 January 2025, I was talking to a friend about how anxious and insecure I felt about my writing style. She introduced me to The artist’s way, and we set up a small group to work through the book. The same friend sent me information about this Short.Sharp.Stories call, and I decided that it was time to take my creative self seriously and give it a try. I’m so glad I did.
What’s next for you? Has the short story bug bitten? And are you, as the “early career writer”, aware of themes you’d like to explore?
Some years ago, I started writing a novel. I did everything that you are advised not to do when writing your first novel – it’s set in three time zones, and based in countries that I am not that familiar with. I got about halfway through and reached an impasse. So, next I started writing my life story (which is almost complete).
I learned a great deal about storytelling from writing “Pap and skop”, particularly through the curating and editing process, for which I am really grateful. I have subsequently written a couple more short stories – one a great deal shorter and the second twice as long. I am enjoying exploring how length impacts the telling of a tale. So, yes, the bug has bitten. But I will definitely go back to my full-length novel once I am done with the second draft of my life story.
As far as themes are concerned, I find that in all my writing I am preoccupied with the cobweb-like strength and potent spiritual beauty of women.
And for fun: can you name one music album you always return to, and tell us why you love it so much? And if you could name one book, which would it be?
There are so many! It depends on my mood and what is happening in my life. I am drawn to music that heightens my emotions, that gives me a sense of ecstasy. This is usually music that is in one of the minor keys. If I had to choose one, it would probably be Schubert’s “Trout quintet” or Miles Davis’s “Sketches of Spain”.
One book! The first magical realist novel I read was Márquez’s One hundred years of solitude, so I would have to choose this from the many that occupy the bookshelves hiding behind my eyes.
What kind of books do you find hard to finish? (I won't blame you if you decide to drop a title or two – we’ll keep that between us and your readers, I swear!)
I seem to have started reading but not finished more novels than I would like. Sometimes it’s because I find the style turgid. Sometimes it’s dialogue, for example, overuse of a particular dialect, that feels forced and begins to irritate me. Sometimes it’s as simple as feeling bored by the plot.
We’ll leave it there – and I hope to read more of your stories.
Vuyokazi Ngemntu is a writer-performer in Cape Town, South Africa, whose praxis uses poetry, song, physical theatre, storytelling and ritual to navigate epigenetic trauma and centre indigenous knowledge systems in the creation of new black imaginaries. Her short story “Binnegoed” was selected as the overall winner of Ibua Journal’s 2022 Bold: Food regional. Her short story “Blood and ballots” was featured in The year’s best African speculative fiction volume three. Her work has appeared in World Literature Today, The Kalahari Review, Herri, Ibua Journal, Short.Sharp.Stories, New Contrast, Ake Review, Pepper Coast Lit, The Culture Review and elsewhere.
Power is available at good bookstores and directly from Tattoo Press: joanne.hichens@gmail.com.
Tattoo Press is an independent small publisher, specialising in contemporary South African short fiction.
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