Niq Mhlongo – författare

Niq Mhlongo returns with a collection of short stories that cover the span of our democracy: Crime, xenophobia, racism and homophobia, the new black elite, land redistribution, the Zuma presidency. The stories have been published to critical acclaim in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the USA but remain largely unknown in South Africa. A?ffluenza offers us a chance to savour Niq Mhlongo's take on the madness of the last twenty years.

If the apricot trees of Soweto could talk, what stories would they tell? This short story collection provides an imaginative answer as it captures the vibrancy of the township and surrounds. Told with satirical flair, life and death intertwine in these tales where funerals and the ancestors feature strongly; where cemeteries are places to show off a new car and catch up on gossip. Take a seat under the apricot tree and be enthralled by tales both entertaining and thought-provoking.

This short story collection is filled with memorable characters, intriguing plots and twist endings. With his keen observations and insights into human nature, Mhlongo explores the things people do for each other, but also to each other. Injustice, corruption, love and desire are just some of the aspects of human interaction featured here. A family refuses to leave when the bank repossesses their house; stalking has an unexpected outcome; a desensitised morgue manager is spooked; and more!

Mangi and his fiancée, Aza, have been living together in Linden for the past eight years. One day while cleaning their bedroom, Mangi discovers Aza’s secret. The uncovering of Aza's lie is the catalyst to the unravelling of their already tumultuous relationship. When Aza eventually ends their relationship, Mangi is left destitute. Mangi searches for meaning as he makes his way through the streets of Joburg in The City Is Mine.

Dog Eat Dog is a remarkable record of being young in a nation undergoing tremendous turmoil, and provides a glimpse into South Africa's pivotal kwaito (South African hip-hop) generation and life in Soweto. Set in 1994, just as South Africa is making its postapartheid transition, Dog Eat Dog captures the hopes—and crushing disappointments—that characterize such moments in a nation's history.Raucous and darkly humorous, Dog Eat Dog is narrated by Dingamanzi Makhedama Njomane, a college student in South Africa who spends his days partying, skipping class, and picking up girls. But Dingz, as he is known to his friends, is living in charged times, and his discouraging college life plays out against the backdrop of South Africa's first democratic elections, the spread of AIDS, and financial difficulties that threaten to force him out of school.

For You, I’d Steal a Goat is a vibrant collection of short stories filled with memorable characters, intriguing plots, and twist endings. It explores a wide range of themes, such as corruption, racial bias, family troubles, and lovers’ spats, to name a few. In his stories about queer relationships, Niq Mhlongo surfaces the complexities of a community whose narratives have been silenced. With his keen observations and insights into human nature, Mhlongo explores the things that people do for each other, but also to each other, including acts of injustice and exploitation as well as of love and desire.Mhlongo’s stories are critical, erudite, and masterfully crafted using satire and careful deliberation to connect to the quotidian lived experiences of readers. With a sense of humor, Mhlongo reflects on some of the greatest transformations South Africans have faced in recent times and engages with crucial matters in the present.

‘This place is labelled the city of gold, Jozi Maboneng. There is indeed a constant rush, the winner takes it all, and a “survival of the fittest” mentality driving the hunger and competitive spirit of those born here, and equally seen in the eyes of the immigrants; legal and illegal alike. Dreams not realised have left most of the once-eager hopefuls desolate, seeking shelter under bridges and abandoned city buildings… Oh Yeoville, Yeoville man, now this was a whole different world on its own … the culture, the music, the DJs and live bands, the food and the hangout places’ – Gloria Bosman, ‘A Little Something from the Pot’ Joburg Noir is a collection of writings about memories, legends, loss, jokes, stories, myths and experiences by twenty-two gifted and versatile authors in South Africa. It makes the reader experience present-day Johannesburg as if one were in the past. The stories seek to understand, reconstruct, reinvent and recover this city space of loss, joy, deprivation, resistance and possibility by revealing its complex dynamics. They are funny, shocking, violent, absurd, strangely tender and memorable. Their lasting resonance lies in the fact that they invoke the joys and traumas of the past and present, making the two to co-exist and interlock. After reading this uncompromising and gritty anthology, the reader is bound to feel like a time-traveller who has voyaged into a magical alternate city and a reality that was either misnamed or not named at all. The intention is to help the readers to delve into their own memories in search of pictures of their sweet childhood and fractured identities.