Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu – författare

Winner of the Windham Campbell Prize'A gifted storyteller' - The Sunday Times'Ndlovu’s lyrical writing has reimagined how stories about post-independence Zimbabwe are told' - The GuardianIn 1985, five girls – Suzanne, Portia, Chantal, Senzeni and Petronella – find themselves at Miss McDonald’s Boarding House.Suzanne’s father has been disappeared by one word: assassination. Portia’s mother has left her in the care of witches. Chantal’s mother has befriended Johnnie Walker. Senzeni’s parents have contracted something called new-mo-nia. Petronella’s mother has failed to live up to her daughter’s great expectations.The girls form a fierce bond. But then Senzeni disappears from their lives. The Last of the Innocents follows the four friends as they carry the weight of their shared secrets from girlhood to womanhood. Can their burdened bond survive the revelation of truth? Should it?'Her style is deceptively simple as she describes the great mysteries of how we come to be who we are' - The New York Times 'Ndlovu impresses with a fresh and astute perspective on colonialism, race and family' - Publishers Weekly

"This transcendent and powerful testament to the indomitable human spirit is not to be missed." —Publishers Weekly, starred reviewFrom 2022 Windham Campbell Prize winner Siphiwe Gloria NdlovuBook 1 in the City of Kings trilogyAs Imogen Zula Nyoni, aka Genie, lies in a coma at Mater Dei Hospital after having suffered through a long illness, her family and friends struggle to come to terms with her impending death. This is the story of Genie, who has gifts that transcend time and space. It is also the story of her forebears - Baines Tikiti, who, because of his wanderlust, changed his name and ended up walking into the Indian Ocean; his son, Livingstone Stanley Tikiti, who, during the war, took as his nom de guerre Golide Gumede and who became obsessed with flight; and Golide's wife, Elizabeth Nyoni, a country-and-western singer self-styled after Dolly Parton, blonde wig and all. With the lightest of touches, and with an overlay of magical-realist beauty, this novel sketches, through the lives of a few families and the fate of a single patch of ground, decades of national history (a country in Southern Africa that is never named) - from colonial occupation through the freedom struggle, to the devastation wrought by the sojas, the HIV virus, and The Man Himself. At turns mysterious and magical, but always honest, The Theory of Flight explores the many ways we lose those we love before they die.