Photo of Shanice Ndlovu: 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 the ever-present issues of loadshedding.
In this Short.Sharp.Stories interview, Joanne Hichens chats with Shanice Ndlovu, author of the short story “When I think of my death”, a journey home and one of trauma and dreams.
Shanice Ndlovu is a published epic fantasy writer. Her first short story collection, The pride of Noonlay, was published by Modjaji Books in 2020, followed by The Ishmael tree in 2022. She has published a few other stories in various anthologies for prizes such as the Toyin Falola Prize and the K&L Prize, and has been published previously in Short.Sharp.Stories, in the anthology Fluid: The freedom to be. Ndlovu is currently completing a master’s degree in creative writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. She started and runs a poetry podcast called the Poedcast, and has been nominated for the NOMMO Speculative Fiction Awards.
Your protagonist, Thuna, wakes “with a shatter of screams” after her first dream – or one could call it a vision. Not only is this a fantastic opening, but it points to dreams as being a theme of the story and indeed seminal to the life of your protagonist. In what way are the dreams a focus?
Dreams are a driving force in my storytelling. The creative project I wrote for my master’s degree is titled The language of dreams, and this story carries the same motif that determined that work. It is, like all the others, an attempt at putting language to dreaming. Much like with the main character, Thuna, this stems from the belief system held by the people who come from the same place I do. This is the belief that dreams have the power to inform and influence the waking world.
How, from the outset, does the visceral dream life of your protagonist speak to power?
The main character, Thunalami, learns of the gift of her dreams and the power they wield, and also quickly learns of the cost of it, which is the salt. The exploration of power in this story was in that cost and those who bear the burden of that payment. Thuna is consumed by her power and those who wish to benefit from it, all this at the hefty price of turning the entire world into a barren expanse, including the valley she has left behind.
Thuna makes her way home and connects with a childhood friend, Ndalo. In what ways is the “return”, the “homecoming”, important to you in this story, and to the women who meet up again?
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Thuna, like so many others who have left a homeland, believes that there is something in the world outside her valley that she must leave to find. When she returns, she has broken the world in pursuit of it, and she learns, as many of us who leave and return do, that – for better or worse – home is always waiting with open arms.
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It was pointed out to me a while back that I write a lot of “running” and “returning” into my stories. I attribute that to my lifelong migration. Thuna, like so many others who have left a homeland, believes that there is something in the world outside her valley that she must leave to find. When she returns, she has broken the world in pursuit of it, and she learns, as many of us who leave and return do, that – for better or worse – home is always waiting with open arms. Home for her is Ndalo.
The bond between the women, though fraught and difficult, is indisputable. Is this, in essence, a story of sisterhood?
The relationship between Thuna and Ndalo, despite not being platonic, is founded on the same values of a bond that feels beyond choice for either of them. However, this is, in essence, a love story.
Are you specifically dealing with feminist themes – particularly bearing in mind the first section of the story, in which Thuna and Ndalo are separated by the actions of men?
I am an African woman in the world, and feminist in how I move in it. I don’t set out to explore certain themes in my work, but I am also very aware that aspects of what I am and what I know of the world will be echoed in the stories. Thuna and Ndalo are the women I know around me, and so, too, are their experiences. The work is, because I am and those around me are. They navigate a lot of what the women I know learn to navigate, including the violence of men.
The title points to the circularity of the story. How is the title connected to death and to time?
The title, “When I think of my death”, makes it clear from the beginning that this is a suicide mission. Thuna returns to the valley having done what she believes is unforgivable. As she makes the journey back home, she also walks back in time, from her childhood, through her youth, circling back to where she now stands at the edge of her dying. I think this eludes to the notion that even in life we are in the midst of death, but also, as it says in the story, that “there is no past”.
Again – in this story and the story that appeared in Fluid, “Of somo seeds” – the magic realism and fantasy is rich and compelling. What draws you to writing fantasy, or in this case did the story compel you?
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There is a freedom in speculative fiction that doesn’t exist in any other genre – anything can happen. That kind of freedom, once tasted, is addictive. And that is what fantasy has provided me – a place to articulate these stories fully. This particular story begins with a dream, possibly the oldest of all that is speculative.
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There is a freedom in speculative fiction that doesn’t exist in any other genre – anything can happen. That kind of freedom, once tasted, is addictive. And that is what fantasy has provided me – a place to articulate these stories fully. This particular story begins with a dream, possibly the oldest of all that is speculative.
Could you speak to the role of the indigenous cultures and how they are used in the creation of the fantasy you write?
Most of what I do hinges on faith – faith that the story will come and that the people will speak, and that they will be whole in how their culture is displayed and portrayed. Very little of my work is intentional, at least not in the initial writing of the story. I have, however, learned that my upbringing influences a lot of how I interpret the worlds I find. So, that is the only culture I can speak to. The way of life of those around me colours much of how I understand the worlds I write.
Is the village setting familiar to you? How do you place yourself so immediately and believably in the setting?
Yes, very familiar. This is the first time I have consciously written the place where I was born. I allude to it in other stories and it certainly bleeds into many of the worlds I write, but this story is the first time I have intentionally written Matabeleland, where I am from.
The village setting is certainly evocative. What does it bring up for you, the writer?
I was born in a village in Matabeleland, so writing in that kind of setting felt like a coming home of sorts. I usually write epic fantasy, so the idea of intentionally writing a place I know was both challenging and very interesting.
This story has also been the basis for a newly produced libretto. Could you describe the process, focusing on how the story was the catalyst for this? What came first – the story, I hope! Can we claim this for a Short.Sharp.Stories first?
I wrote “When I think of my death” for Short.Sharp.Stories, but I was always very interested in extending it, as that world felt like it had more to offer. So, when the opportunity presented itself, I was very happy to stretch that world and ended up with a longer short story, titled “Isithunzi”. I then adapted that story into a libretto with the opera set to premiere at the Munich Biennale in May 2026. I’ll be going over for this.
And, lastly, what is next for you? More short stories?
I am currently working on my first novel, but the short story medium has been very good to me and I imagine I will always write short stories.
Joanne Hichens, author, editor and publisher, is based in Cape Town. She believes in the multiplicity of South African writing talent and has edited numerous anthologies of short stories showcasing the diversity of the South African voice. She is best known for curating the Short.Sharp.Stories series, including anthologies Bloody satisfied, Incredible journey, Adults only and Fluid: The freedom to be, winner of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) Award for Best Edited Collection (2024). The latest of the collections is Power: Short stories that light the dark (2025). She has written crime fiction, YA and, most recently, the acclaimed Death and the after parties (2020).
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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