“I think that publishers have this idea that a story about a black woman needs to be about her struggling with being a middle-class black woman with ‘a maid’, for example. When the 33-year-old set out on her journey to publish the novel, she was met with resistance from publishers who were looking for something more from her story. Mashigo says her intention is to write in the same way people tell stories to friends and family. For me, storytelling is just ‘have you heard?’ and I think that’s what’s made this story different. I think it’s maybe my exposure to storytelling without it being pretentious.

“People always say storytelling is dying and I’m, like, have you been in a taxi? You’ll find one person who is telling a story to another, but suddenly everyone is listening.

It is this sense of storytelling that Mashigo believes is another contributing factor. I wrote a book that I had never read - about people like me.” “There is a whole group of people that have been living bicultural lives and this specific story is about a woman who lives a bicultural life and I think it’s resonated with people. With no intention to publish when she started writing her novel 10 years ago, Mashigo still can’t put her finger on what it is that has made The Yearning stand out. What was it about The Yearning that has South Africans looking for copies of the book? “I think there is something happening where black female writers are proving that maybe you need a black woman to tell a black woman’s story,” Mashigo says.īut she’s not sure.

This was after I had been told that, if you sell 1 000 copies of a local novel, it’s a big deal - because apparently most South African fiction books only sell 600 to 1 000 copies in their lifetime.” “I got an email from my publisher who said it was time for a reprint. But Mohale Mashigo has blown that belief out of the water she is preparing for the second print run of her debut novel, The Yearning. The Yearning, by Mohale Mashigo, winner of the University of Johannesburg Prize for South African Debut Writing, is an unusual novel5.South Africans apparently don’t read, least of all local fiction. The Cheeky Natives sat down with Mohale Mashigo over a conversation filled with lightbulb moments, realisations and introspections delivered in the casual, easy manner which comes from someone whose magic is inherent. So begins the first chapter of Mohale Mashigo's 'The Yearning'. Maybe it wouldn’t but you don’t know that, all you know is that it could have. No one can say they remember every moment of their childhood but imagine not remembering the one moment that could have been responsible for steering your life in a completely different direction to the picture you have now. > CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD EBOOK > CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD EBOOK <<<< _The Yearning by Mohale Mashigo Ebook Epub PDF qou

Mohale mashigo the yearning