Picture of Mthobisi Myeni: provided
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 ever-present issues with loadshedding.
In this Short.Sharp.Stories interview, Lester Walbrugh chats with Mthobisi Myeni, author of the Highly Commended short story “The denizens”, a tale of the residents of a township and how their frustrations play out in a protracted period of loadshedding.
Mthobisi Myeni is an emerging writer who hails from Ingwavuma, a small rural town in KwaZulu-Natal pocketed between South Africa’s borderlines with the Kingdom of Eswatini and Mozambique. He is currently engaged in the MA creative writing programme at Rhodes University, having completed his honours degree in creative writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. Mthobisi is a qualified educator who has taught high school English and social sciences for three years. He began writing habitually in 2022 as an apposite mode of expression, as he is a stammerer. His writing is inspired and informed by his immediate surrounds. His stories represent ordinary people whose voices are somehow dormant.
What was the “spark” for your story, to use an electric term? And what does your story mean to you?
I was drawn to telling a story about the harsh realities that some of South Africa’s citizens are still faced with after 30 years of democracy. There exists a glaring contrast between citizens pertaining to service accessibility and delivery. We still have voters who live in shacks where electricity and water are restricted. By voting for a particular government, these denizens are giving away their power hoping for a change. However, when they decide to reclaim that power due to lack of change, they’re labelled anarchic.
This story depicts the predicaments of living on the fringes of civilisation and being a social spectator. I hope it addresses prevalent issues around basic needs such as housing, electricity and sanitation, which are hindering our country’s progress.
The story is an interweaving of the concept of power from a political, social and personal perspective. How did you work with this combination?
One cannot, in fact, separate the one from the other – the political, in the sense that political parties make empty promises to people just to earn their votes; the social, in the sense of class and the unlivable conditions that plague some sections of society; and the personal, in the sense that the protagonist, Mtawunge, finds himself at a crossroads: he is conflicted between what he wants and what the community wants, and he must reclaim the power of being able to decide for himself.
I wanted to portray the power of unity in terms of what people can achieve together. Most informal settlements survive because their dwellers are tight-knit communities. That is their power.
Your lively cast of characters navigate power dynamics in various ways. Could you share a bit about your protagonist and the challenges he faces in the story?
Mtawunge is a hardworking young man who seems to be doing better than most of the Pholani denizens, but it is not easy for him to pursue his personal ambitions, because life in the informal settlements generally requires one to “be one” with one’s fellow denizens. Mtawunge must prioritise the welfare of those around him over his own, because his business relies on their livelihood. His personal problems must take a backseat, and this makes him feel helpless and powerless. But the community he lives in is powerless as well. Life in the ghetto is an everyday struggle. It is therefore a back and forth as he navigates the perilous “jungle” that is Pholani. It is clear in the story that one might wait forever for power unless one is willing to “usurp” power.
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I see electricity as a character as well, as the story accentuates the power of electricity by showing how it controls and affects life. Lack or scarcity of electricity disrupts society and causes issues that affect everyone. Electricity empowers and connects people; it’s a power that nobody should be denied. This story shows just a fraction of the consequences that (lack of) electricity can have for people.
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I see electricity as a character as well, as the story accentuates the power of electricity by showing how it controls and affects life. Lack or scarcity of electricity disrupts society and causes issues that affect everyone. Electricity empowers and connects people; it’s a power that nobody should be denied. This story shows just a fraction of the consequences that (lack of) electricity can have for people.
The fridge also becomes a sort of character or symbol. Was this intended?
I intended for the fridge to symbolise not just Mtawunge’s dashed hopes, but those of the other Pholani denizens as well. When the denizens come to the city of Pholani, they do not intend to live there forever. They have high hopes of climbing the social ladder and moving to better neighbourhoods, but reality soon hits and they realise that they’re stuck in an unlivable environment. Lack of electricity disrupts their lives in the same way that it renders the fridge useless. The fridge and the denizens cannot be separated, because they both suffer the same ordeal – the fridge is idle in a house without electricity in the same way that the denizens are stuck in Pholani waiting for the next disaster to strike.
How did you bring home the frustrations of the denizens?
Frustrations stem from an accumulation of unfulfilled hopes and promises, which is synonymous with living at the outskirts of civilisation, where people are spectators by default. Their collective voice is obstructed, and they resort to violence as a means of being seen and heard. Service delivery remains a pipe dream in some regions of our country. Too many people live in lack – their instinct is therefore to disrupt and destroy.
As a student of creative writing at Rhodes University, how did you find the editing process?
I found the editing process to be extremely beneficial in stretching the story, by providing viable options and directions for the story to develop without deviating from the theme. I don’t think that this story would’ve become what it is without undergoing the editing process. As a writer, I’ve always known that every piece of writing must go through different drafts before the final one, but now I truly understand why it must be that way, thanks to my experiences with the editors.
What do you hope for readers to take away from your story?
I’d like to believe that my writing often (subtly) explores themes of power. I always strive to amplify the voices of ordinary people by telling their stories from their perspectives. In this story, I tackled power head-on.
I hope for readers to recognise that all South African citizens are equally important in the commonwealth, and that the distribution of power and resources must be balanced in order to achieve order. Readers, especially those who know informal settlements only from a distance, must know that those shacks house human beings who have needs and aspirations just like everyone else. This story opens a window for those readers to get a glimpse of life in shantytowns, with the hope that maybe they might be more sympathetic and understanding towards the dwellers. Also, I hope the readers realise that one always has a choice, no matter one’s condition or the situation one is faced with.
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This story opens a window for those readers to get a glimpse of life in shantytowns, with the hope that maybe they might be more sympathetic and understanding towards the dwellers. Also, I hope the readers realise that one always has a choice, no matter one’s condition or the situation one is faced with.
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Do you have any upcoming projects you’d like to share about?
I have a short story in the anthology The ripe peach and other stories that eventuated from the Bushbuckridge Arts Festival Short Story Competition. I’m currently working on a short story collection that I’m very excited about, because the writing is an exploratory blend of folklore, fantasy, poetry and speculative fiction.
Lester Walbrugh’s stories have been published on the online platforms The Kalahari Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and Itch Magazine, as well as in the Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Die laughing; Hair: Weaving and unpicking stories of identity from Tattoo Press; Hauntings from Jacana Media; and Short Story Day Africa’s ID and Hotel Africa. A collection of these and new stories, Let it fall where it will, was published by Karavan Press in 2020; and a novel, Elton Baatjies, was published in 2022.
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.