"In his brash first novel, "Dog Eat Dog," published in 2004, Mhlongo, now 33, wrote with verve and candor about the anxieties of his demographic: children who are the first in their families to attend college, who are worried about making a living and fearful of disappointing their relatives' expectations, let alone their country's, yet who aren't afraid to play the system. Set in 1994, the heady year of South Africa's first post-apartheid elections, the first-person novel tells the story of Dingamanzi Njomane, a street-smart kid from the townships struggling to stay afloat at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Informed by the university that he doesn't meet the criteria for financial aid, he storms into the bursary and shouts at a white woman who handles such cases. He tells her supervisor that his mother supports nine relatives on his late father's pension. They had even shut off the electricity, he says. "I was not ashamed that I lied. Living in this South Africa of ours you have to master the art of lying in order to survive," Mhlongo's protagonist explains. "As she looked at me I hid my hands under the edge of the table so that she couldn't see my gold-plated Pulsar watch, which I had bought the previous year at American Swiss." "
Riveting and important piece on the literature of today's South Africa. Please read the article here.
- Ikhide
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