Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Evening Primrose
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1985
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: South African
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1985; married Motlatsi Mabaso; children: two.
EDUCATION:Received medical degree; received master’s degree and D.Phil. in public health from University of Oxford.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author and physician; executive director, Zero Stunting Campaign. Founder, Transitions Foundation; co-founder, WREMS (Waiting Room Education by Medical Students); co-founder, Ona Mtoto Wako, 2015.
AWARDS:European Union Literary Award, 2007, and Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature, 2010, both for Coconut; “Young South Africans You Must Take to Lunch” citation, Mail & Guardian, 2008, 2009; “Women of the Year” citation, Glamour Magazine, 2011; Sunday Times Fiction Prize longlist, 2011, for Spilt Milk; Sunday Times shortlist, 2017, for Period Pain; received Aspen Ideas Award for medical innovation; received Rhodes scholarship.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
“A doctor, an author, and a mother,” declared the contributor of a biographical blurb to the Pontas agency website, “Kopano Matlwa has accomplished an enormous amount” in a short time. Matlwa has won awards for her work as a doctor in South Africa as well as the prestigious European Union Literary Award and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature for her first novel, Coconut. “She is currently executive director of the Zero Stunting Campaign ―a South African multi-funder initiative, aimed at halving the prevalence of stunting in South Africa by 2030,” explained a contributor to the author’s home page, the Kopano Mtlwa website.
Matlwa’s works examine the lives of modern South Africans who either do not remember or never encountered apartheid. Even if overt discrimination stopped a quarter-century earlier, Matlwa explains, there are still problems that arise from the long shadow it cast on South African history. “Apartheid may have ended, but Matlwa is acutely aware that political inequality has only given way to economic inequality in contemporary South Africa,” said a Tell Me More interviewer. “‘What’s made us dig deep and ask ourselves hard questions is that this inequality has slightly worsened post-apartheid, and it’s always been easy to be the victim of apartheid, to blame everything on apartheid, but now we have to ask ourselves hard questions.'”
Coconut and Spilt Milk
In Coconut, Matlwa looks at the life of Ofilwe, a post-apartheid black Xhosa girl growing up in modern South Africa. Ofilwe’s family has found success following the collapse of apartheid, but they have paid a price for it: they have lost touch with their traditional culture. As a result Ofilwe is caught between two worlds and cannot fully be a part of either. “The manner in which the truth has been laid out so blatantly yet so simply is what makes Coconut a haunting read,” asserted Eden Nthebolan in Africa Book Club. “This is a perfect depiction of the trouble many young Africans face today yet refuse to confront as the answers are a burden.”
Spilt Milk, like Coconut, is a story of black-white relations in modern South Africa.”The plot conjures up images of those institutions that some prefer to call academies, not schools; the Oprah Winfrey-type places of learning,” stated Don Makatile in Africa Book Club. “And the children? They belong to single parents. Isn’t that the latest fad? The mothers … travel the world on business.”
Period Pain and Evening Primrose
Period Pain looks at the aftermath of a violent sexual assault has on a young South African woman, seeing it as a metaphor for South Africa’s recovery from its history of violence. “Without hope what remains really?” Matlwa asked an interviewer for the Johannesburg Review of Books. “One has to remain hopeful, defiant even. I think that’s what is so exceptional about us as South Africans, we are a defiant people, we continue to believe in ourselves and what we are capable of achieving as a nation, despite the odds in many ways being stacked against us.”
In Evening Primrose, the author tells the story of a doctor who has to confront xenophobia in her own clinic. She initially finds support from a fellow doctor, a woman from Zimbabwe; but as the clinic is flooded with refugees, reported a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “their friendship is tested by their opposing views on colonization, culture, and societal hierarchies.” “Matlwa unleashes Masechaba’s thoughts,” stated Booklist reviewer Annie Bostrom, “in staccato bursts as the young doctor writes her own story.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 2018, Annie Bostrom, review of Evening Primrose, p. 20.
Publishers Weekly, February12, 2018, review of Evening Primrose, p. 52.
ONLINE
Africa Book Club, https://www.africabookclub.com/ (May 19, 2011), Don Makatile, review of Spilt Milk; (January 29, 2012), Eden Nthebolan, review of Coconut.
Johannesburg Review of Books, https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/ (June 5, 2017), “It Was a Hard Book to Write: Kopano Matlwa Discusses Her Latest Novel, Period Pain.“
Kopano Matlwa website, http://www.kopanomabaso.com/ (June 27, 2018), author profile.
Pontas, http://www.pontas-agency.com/ (June 27, 2018), author profile.
South African, https://www.thesouthafrican.com/ (April 26, 2010), review of Coconut.
Tell Me More, https://www.npr.org/ (September 4, 2012), “In South Africa, No Crying over ‘Spilt Milk’?”
Kopano Matlwa
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Kopana Matlwa
Kopano Matlwa Mabaso at Spotlight Health Aspen Ideas Festival 2015.JPG
Born 1985 (age 32–33)
South Africa
Occupation Novelist, physician
Genre Fiction
Notable works Coconut, Spilt Milk
Kopano Matlwa (born 1985) is a South African writer known for her novel Spilt Milk, which focuses on the South Africa's "Born Free" generation, or those who became adults in the post-Apartheid era[1] and Coconut, her debut novel, which addresses issues of race, class and colonization in modern Johannesburg.[2] Coconut was awarded the European Union Literary Award in 2006/07 and also won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2010. Spilt Milk made the long list for the 2011 Sunday Times Fiction Prize.[3]
Matlwa is influenced by her youth when writing. She was nine or 10 years old in 1994 when Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, and she told NPR that she remembers it as an "exciting time": "We were the 'Rainbow Nation,' and kind of the 'golden children' of Africa." As she grew up, however, she says that sense of hope and newness fell away to the reality of a corruptible government.[1] She is also a physician, who wrote her first novel, Coconut, while completing her medical degree.[2]
Matlwa has been cited as the emerging voice of a new generation of South African writers, dealing with issues such as race, poverty and gender.[4] Coconut has been noted for its exploration of women's appearance, including the political aspect of black women's hair.[5]
Books
Coconut (Jacana, 2007), ISBN 9781431403899
Spilt Milk (Jacana, 2010), ISBN 9781431404018
Period Pain (Jacana, 2017), ISBN 978-1431424375. As Evening Primrose (London: Sceptre, 2017), ISBN 978-1473662261
Kopano Matlwa
A doctor, an author, and a mother, Kopano Matlwa has accomplished an enormous amount at a young age. Matlwa was named as one of South Africa’s game changers in a recent project, 21 Icons, celebrating young South African talent, inspired by the life of Nelson Mandela. She took the South African literary world by storm when, in 2007, at only 21, she won the European Union Literary Award for her bestselling debut novel Coconut and was joint winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2010. Spilt Milk, an allegory of love lost between black and white South Africa, followed in 2010, and was long-listed for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. Matlwa is also winner of Aspen Ideas Award for medical innovation and is currently reading for a DPhil in Population Health at the University of Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. Period Pain is her third novel.
It was a hard book to write: Kopano Matlwa discusses her latest novel, Period Pain
JUNE 5, 2017THE JRBLEAVE A COMMENT ON IT WAS A HARD BOOK TO WRITE: KOPANO MATLWA DISCUSSES HER LATEST NOVEL, PERIOD PAIN
The Johannesburg Review of BooksTHE JOHANNESBURG REVIEW OF BOOKS
It was a hard book to write: Kopano Matlwa discusses her latest novel, Period Pain
JUNE 5, 2017THE JRBLEAVE A COMMENT ON IT WAS A HARD BOOK TO WRITE: KOPANO MATLWA DISCUSSES HER LATEST NOVEL, PERIOD PAIN
Period Pain
Kopano Matlwa
Jacana Media 2017
Kopano Matlwa burst onto the literary scene in 2007 with the publication of her debut novel Coconut, which became a bestseller and won the European Union Literary Award. Her second novel, Spilt Milk, won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in 2010. Her latest novel, Period Pain, was recently shortlisted for the Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize.
In an interview with The JRB, Matlwa discussed her new book. Each question is contextualised with a quote from Period Pain.
If this were apartheid, I’d be one of those quiet white people who just stood by and watched it happen.
The JRB: Despite its brevity and humour, Period Pain is a novel of big ideas. You manage to balance hefty topics with a lightness of touch—and a startling brevity. Did that come naturally to you, or did you have to work at it?
Kopano Matlwa: Hmm … that’s a difficult question. It was a hard book to write, but I think that had less so to do with the writing style itself but rather because it dealt with themes very close to my heart and it forced me to work through my own big scary questions when writing it.
I guess this ability we have – to go from looking at street signs and roundabouts in a learner’s license study book to overtaking trucks on the highway – makes us a little reckless when it comes to what we think we’re capable of achieving.
[…]
I see now that there was actually a lot of luck in my getting to this point, and perhaps a lot of unseen effort by those around me.
The JRB: The myth of the self-made man or the rags-to-riches story, with Benjamin Franklin perhaps the most famous example, has a powerful foothold in American consciousness, despite current thought debunking it because of the huge and often unacknowledged role that social-structural factors and even luck play in these narratives. It strikes me that the myth is equally powerful in South Africa, and even more pernicious. The idea that success is obligatory if you’re young, black and free is psychologically damaging on a national scale. Did any of these ideas fuel your creation of Masechaba?
Kopano Matlwa: No not particularly. I don’t think Masechaba viewed her dreams necessarily through the lens of being ‘young, black and free’ but rather hers were just the dreams of a young person with the hope of making an impact on the world, regardless of their race or gender.
I’m no good at arguing. I get too overwhelmed and my mind goes blank, so I say nothing.
The JRB: We know, of course, that Masechaba is in fact very good at arguing; she does it eloquently and elegantly in her diary. But these arguments are one sided. The decision to write the novel as a diary means Masechaba becomes a complex character, we see her inner self as she presents it to us, but we also see, through her reportage, how she presents herself to other people, and how they react. What were your reasons for using the diary form?
Kopano Matlwa: It kind of came to me as diary entries right from the start, and resisted being written any other way, so of fear of disrupting the ‘flow’, I let it unfold the way it wanted to.
If my mind were to fall apart, what would become of me? […] Things are spiralling out of control.
The JRB: I hear echoes of Chinua Achebe’s famous work here, and there are threads that connect the novels. But there is a vital difference: at the end of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo hangs himself. In Period Pain, Masechaba too experiences extreme darkness, but out of it comes her daughter, “so perfect, so magnificent”. In fact the book is almost a litany of shameful societal sins and personal tragedy – suicide, racism, xenophobia, rape – which ends on a tone of hope. Was that hopeful tone an important ingredient for you?
Kopano Matlwa: Without hope what remains really? One has to remain hopeful, defiant even. I think that’s what is so exceptional about us as South Africans, we are a defiant people, we continue to believe in ourselves and what we are capable of achieving as a nation, despite the odds in many ways being stacked against us. Masechaba is no different.
There is no vocabulary for the pain I feel. How do I construct a sentence that explains that they made me into a shell of myself? Not ‘like’ a shell of myself, but an actual shell of myself? How do I explain that what they stole from me is more than just my ‘womanhood’ or any of that condescending stuff people like to talk about, but a thing that once lost can never be found because it is unnamed? How do I explain that the languages at my disposal can’t communicate the turmoil I have inside?
[…]
‘I was raped.’
Dr Phakama wants me to say it. She says it will help. She says by putting it in the past tense I can overcome it.
But when it’s your own life and you’re living it, there is never so clear a distinction. I’m still being raped even now, even when I’m not. I can’t say when one stopped and the other began. I am being rape.
The JRB: The failure of language as a tool to express what we know and feel – Masechaba encounters it both as a failure of words and a failure of grammar. Tying that in with the structure of the novel, where the narrative is broken up by poetic interludes, it seems that these unnamable things and feelings are best expressed when language is forced to become poetry, containing less meaning and more meaning at the same time.
Kopano Matlwa: Absolutely. What a beautiful way of putting it! I agree completely!
Nyasha shrugged. ‘It’s just a period South Africa’s in,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Growing pains.’
‘Like period pain,’ I said, trying to make a joke.
‘Yeah.’ She gave me a weak smile. ‘Like period pain.’
[…]
Time moves slowly. Tshiamo’s old watch calls from my dressing table drawer.
‘Chronos, kairos, chronos, kairos …’
I wore it until the strap withered, and then carried it in my pocket until the face fell and cracked. So now it sits in my drawer raising its voice from time to time.
The JRB: Masechaba writes this diary entry in the fitful time after she is raped, when a moment of horror interrupted her day to day life, a dark inversion of how kairos, a godly moment, penetrates chronos, our quotidian existence. That’s deep. It also ties to the title of the book, Period Pain – a period of pain much more debilitating than is often acknowledged. At the same time, after she stops taking her medication Masechaba describes her feelings as “a kind of pain, a kind of pleasure, a kind of freedom that I like”. Do you think South Africa’s current pain is a symptom of our freedom, and a necessary step towards redemption?
Kopano Matlwa: Sho … I don’t know … if it is a symptom of our freedom, that pain is unjustly primarily experienced by those who are yet to taste freedom, so I’d hate to think it a necessary step towards redemption. Perhaps maybe a symptom of avoiding the necessary steps towards redemption, whatever those steps may be.
If I was to explain to her what awaits her, she would not understand. She is too young, and, anyway, to what end? The deed must be done, the jab must be given. Why spoil her morning with stressful information, when I will be right there by her side to comfort her when it is all over?
The JRB: The last lines of the novel. Masechaba is confident that by connecting with her she will be able to help her daughter overcome the necessary pain of her immunisations. Do you think there’s a similar solution for South Africa’s societal pain?
Kopano Matlwa: I doubt there is a single, one shot solution. Ours is a pain that has been centuries in the making, and perhaps the worst thing we can do is to look for quick fixes. But the idea that it will be a painful road to recovery is one that I think both Masechaba’s personal journey and that of South Africa’s share.
The JRB: Finally, could you share some books that recently inspired you, or books you recommend, or books you’re reading at the moment?
Kopano Matlwa: Sure. Books that inspired me:
Dr Seuss: Oh the places you will go!
Tsitsi Dangarembga: Nervous Conditions
Steve Biko: I Write What I like
Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche: Purple Hibiscus
Biography
A DOCTOR, AN AUTHOR, AND A MOTHER, KOPANO MATLWA MABASO HAS ACCOMPLISHED AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT AT A YOUNG AGE.
Dr. Kopano Matlwa Mabaso is a South African medical doctor & novelist. She is currently Executive Director of the Zero Stunting Campaign ―a South African multi-funder initiative, aimed at halving the prevalence of stunting in South Africa by 2030.
Kopano is a Rhodes Scholar and an alumnus of the University of Oxford where she gained both her masters and DPhil in Public Health. Kopano Matlwa Mabaso is an elected board member of Health Systems Global, the world’s first international society dedicated to health systems strengthening and knowledge translation. She is the founder of Transitions Foundation an organization that seeks to help South Africa’s youth transition from hopelessness to personal fulfilment through education.
As a medical student, she also co-founded WREMS (Waiting Room Education by Medical Students), a health promotion organization educating patients and their families on common health conditions in the waiting rooms of mobile clinics.
Kopano is a published fiction writer and the winner of the European Literary Award (2007) and joint winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa (2010). Her three novels Coconut, Spilt Milk and Period Pain are social commentaries on post-apartheid South Africa and between them, have been received over a dozen international rights deals. Period Pain was in 2017/18 shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Award, the South African Literary Awards and South Africa’s Humanities & Social Sciences Awards.
In 2008 and 2009 Kopano was singled out as one of 300 young South Africans ‘you must take to lunch’ by the Mail & Guardian Newspaper and in 2011 was selected as one of Glamour Magazine’s women of the year. Kopano formed part of the founding group of World Economic Forum Global Shapers-Johannesburg Hub, was selected as a Young Physician Leader by the Interacademies Medial Panel in 2014, formed part of the 2015 class of Tutu Fellows and is one of the Aspen Institute’s New Voices in Global Health Fellows.
In 2015 Kopano co-founded Ona Mtoto Wako an initiative that sought to take lifesaving antenatal health care to pregnant women living in remote and rural parts of developing country settings, with the aim to reduce the unacceptably high burden of preventable maternal deaths in these regions. The Ona Mtoto Wako initiative won the 2015 Aspen Idea Award.
In 2016 Kopano Matlwa Mabaso was named as one of South Africa’s game changers in a recent project, 21 Icons, celebrating young South African talent, inspired by the life of Nelson Mandela.
Kopano is a proud mother of two, and is married to her best friend, Motlatsi Mabaso.
6/3/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Evening Primrose
Annie Bostrom
Booklist.
114.13 (Mar. 1, 2018): p20.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Evening Primrose. By Kopano Matlwa. Apr. 2018.160p. Quercus, $19.99 (9781635060324); e-book
(9781635060348).
Masechaba thought that becoming a doctor would be the solution to one shameful problem. Finally, she'd be
able to convince someone to give her the hysterectomy that would stop her constant, heavy menstruation.
But she could not have fathomed the new difficulties the profession would invite. Masechaba still calls and
emails her brother, though he committed suicide, and is protective of her mother despite the woman's
traditional views and disapproval of Masechaba's Zimbabwean roommate, Nyasha. From her side of the
exam table, Masechaba sees troubling aspects of South Africa's health care system and that many of her
patients are not ready to share what they fought for with foreigners, an observation confirmed by Nyasha.
When Masechaba's antixenophobia activism leads to a violent sexual attack, the rupture is devastating.
Novelist (Spilt Milk, 2012), physician, and Rhodes Scholar Matlwa unleashes Masechaba's thoughts in
staccato bursts as the young doctor writes her own story in the form of a journal addressed to God and
interspersed with Bible verses. Exploring faith and education, inheritance and renewal, Matlwa's inventions
are both human and divine.--Annie Bostrom
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Bostrom, Annie. "Evening Primrose." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2018, p. 20. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532250816/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=48dec900.
Accessed 3 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532250816
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Evening Primrose
Publishers Weekly.
265.7 (Feb. 12, 2018): p52+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Evening Primrose
Kopano Matlwa. Quercus, $19.99 (160p)
ISBN 978-1-63506-032-4
In this slim but complex novel, Matlwa (Spilt Milk) presents a visceral and empathetic vision of South
Africa. Masechaba dedicates her life to medicine, hoping to one day cure her chronic reproductive health
problems. A doctor, Masechaba navigates the overcrowded and limited resources plaguing the South
African healthcare system. She seeks companionship in Nyasha, an opinionated physician from Zimbabwe.
However, after a wave of vicious anti-immigrant sentiment leads to a swell of wounded foreigners admitted
to their unnamed hospital, their friendship is tested by their opposing views on colonization, culture, and
societal hierarchies; Masechaba resolves to petition against the prejudicial views held by many of her fellow
citizens. Her petition succeeds in gaining international attention, but inevitably the zealots she had hoped to
curb target her for her anti-xenophobic stance, resulting in a violent attack. Matlwa's novel is a critical
exploration of contemporary xenophobia and the lasting socioeconomic effects of apartheid. The book's
clever structure--Masechaba's journal entries addressed to God, punctuated by Bible scripture--assists the
narrative voice, providing deeper context for the conflicts that lead Masechaba from frustration to crisis.
Matlwa's portrait of Masechaba is nuanced and impressive, and her story moving. (Apr)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Evening Primrose." Publishers Weekly, 12 Feb. 2018, p. 52+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528615465/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d82121df.
Accessed 3 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528615465
Foyles book review: Coconut by Kopano Matlwa
A number of South African authors will be participating in the upcoming London Book Fair. Leading London bookstore Foyles reviews the novel of one of those authors, Kopano Matlwa
By TheSouthAfrican.com - 2010-04-2615:00
South African News
South African News
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This dazzling debut novel, winner of the European Union Literary Award, gives a teenager’s perspective on growing up black in a predominantly white neighbourhood. Ofilwe’s enjoyment of the comfortable trappings of a middle-class lifestyle is slowly undermined by her realisation that she will never be fully accepted by her white peers. She comes to understand the importance of preserving her racial heritage, through the language and culture of the Xhosa.
9781770093362 | RRP £7.99
Publication date: 02/05/2007
available from foyles bookstore: www.foyles.co.uk
Coconut (by Kopano Matlwa)
JANUARY 29, 2012 BY EDEN NTHEBOLAN 4 COMMENTS
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Coconut (by Kopano Matlwa)“So much, too much you have changed. Stuck between two worlds, shunned by both.”
The manner in which the truth has been laid out so blatantly yet so simply is what makes Coconut a haunting read. This is a perfect depiction of the trouble many young Africans face today yet refuse to confront as the answers are a burden that has been carried forth from history, a burden that was not unsaddled when it should have been. The dichotomy of the dilemmas shows brilliantly the different worlds and issues young Africans are slapped with daily.
Ofilwe, a pampered and cultureless black girl growing up in the suburbs of Johannesburg is struggling to find her identity in the world she has been thrust into by the hands of her nouveau riche family. These same hands are responsible for the conflict within her that arises as she realizes the price that she must pay in order to gain admiration from the well-off, established and accepted white society around her that is quick to criticize and shove her in her place with one word of correction at every turn. She represents a generation of young blacks that is meandering its way in a world full of opportunity and privilege that is carrying its own weight under the heavy hand of uncorrected history.
Fikile on the other hand speaks for the majority as her life is more relatable. The young, out-spoken and sassy girl is more ambitious than the under privileged blacks that litter her township. Her intentions are to make her way into the world that devastates Ofilwe and her brother Tshepo, at any cost, a world she only knows from her magazines. From humble and unfortunate beginnings, we see Fikile’s intelligence shine through and push her to do whatever she can to make it, all at the same time trying to maintain her complexion which can hinder her ambition to be more pleasing to the white people and disassociate her from her black past. Even with their different pasts and unfortunate circumstances, the common denominator is their substitution of ignorance for truth and being blindsided by the unforgiving world that is a result of mistakes past.
The humor in Coconut is what makes it a pleasant read. It is bold and unafraid, and therefore that much more memorable. However, the writer moves in and out of events and thought patterns, and this may confuse an untrained reader. Rating: 7/10
Kopano Matlwa is a sensitive and empathetic writer. She is also very accomplished for her age. Coconut, which is her debut novel, won the European Award, and later the coveted Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature in 2010. She is a University of Cape Town medical school graduate and is currently pursuing a MSc in Global Health Science at Oxford University.
Spilt Milk (by Kopano Matlwa)
MAY 19, 2011 BY DON MAKATILE LEAVE A COMMENT
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Spilt Milk
Spilt Milk
Things are going famously well for Kopano Matlwa. Her second book, Spilt Milk, recently made the long list for the 2011 Sunday Times Fiction Prize, and was up against great writing talent like Zukiswa Wanner (Men of the South), Craig Higginson (Last Summer), Wessel Ebersohn (Those Who Love Night), and Chris Marnewick (The Soldier Who Said No), to name but just a few.
Although she didn’t make the shortlist, Matlwa has already registered some success. Her debut novel, Coconut, won the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature in 2010.
Spilt Milk , published in 2010 by Jacana Media, is one for the Born-Free generation – for them and about them. The plot conjures up images of those institutions that some prefer to call academies, not schools; the Oprah Winfrey-type places of learning. Except through Matlwa’s pen the founder, Mohumagadi, is the principal. All the teachers have Dr. as a title of address though she doesn’t say if any holds a doctorate and, if so, from which institution of higher learning.
And the children? They belong to single parents. Isn’t that the latest fad? The mothers brandish Blackberry phones, drive cars with personalized registration plates, travel the world on business and are either diplomats, CEOs of companies or newspaper columnists in their down time.
One of the children, Ndudumo, in her own words, a sexually conscious 10 year-old, is the daughter of a radio DJ turned writer. Her friend, Moya, is nothing like the free-talking Ndudumo but in her quiet reserve, she finds time to talk about masturbation with the ease of speech little girls swoon over their dolls.
The duo, along with two boys; Mlilo and Zulwini are detained – the after-school type – after a sex act in the back of a school bus. The quartet will point out towards the end of the book that this was merely a school project gone awry, nothing sexual.
If the creator of Harry Potter set out to make her child characters magical, Matlwa succeeds in making her own little geniuses, future members of Mensa.
Into this high class spick-and-span mix lands a disheveled white cleric with pus-heavy dry lips, Father Bill – William Thomas – who, 15 years prior had bonked and dumped Mohumagadi, the principal, at a Christian boarding school the author dithers to identify as such.
While Father Bill still loves Mohumagadi and continues to call her by her real name – Tshokolo, Mohumagadi has never forgiven him.
It takes the death of Mlilo, the shining light of the school for Mohumagadi to see the light that you can’t cry over spilt milk.
Read it so that you can, in the language of young South Africans, get with it.
© makatilemedia 2011
In South Africa, No Crying Over 'Spilt Milk'?
September 4, 20124:02 PM ET
Heard on Tell Me More
NPR STAFF
South African writer Kopano Matlwa is also a physician. Writing, she says, "was really just a hobby, and I am really grateful to God that it turned out to be more than that."
Courtesy of Kopano Matlwa
"After" may be the most important word in South African writer Kopano Matlwa's novel Spilt Milk. The book focuses on the "Born Free" generation — those who came of age in the post-apartheid era, which began 18 years ago. As the first passage of the book highlights, this generation's story begins "After all the excitement, after the jubilation, after the celebrations..."
A Dream Or A Lie?
In a conversation with Tell Me More host Michel Martin, Matlwa she will never forget the euphoria of that historic moment. "I was 9 or 10 years old in 1994 when the new democratic government was elected and Mandela was president, and it was such an exciting time, and there were so [many] prospects. We were the 'Rainbow Nation,' and kind of the 'golden children' of Africa." She remembers her parents telling her that her life would be so different from their own. But soon, Matlwa and other South Africans started to feel "deceit and greed and corruption" creeping into society, and she began to wonder "whether the dream was a lie."
It was this disappointment that led her to write Spilt Milk. The novel is centered on Mohumagadi, the successful black principal of her own "School of Excellence," and her relationships with her students and with a white priest who has fallen on hard times.
Spilt Milk
Spilt Milk
by Kopano Matlwa
Paperback, 195 pages purchase
Matlwa says these characters and relationships symbolize the political and personal disappointments she and other South Africans endure. "It does represent the love lost between white and black South Africa, and the promises that we all made to each other in 1994 that none of us kept.
"We would never admit to each other that we actually need each other," she says, "that we can't build this country without each other."
A Writer And A Healer
In addition to her work as a writer, Matlwa is a physician. She regularly sees South Africa's inequalities in the country's hospitals. "It's shocking the extent of poverty in a very wealthy country ... and we can't keep using the excuse of being a young democracy for very much longer." She also acknowledges that the current trouble in the country's platinum and gold mines "demonstrates how ... people are so dissatisfied, let down and disappointed. A lot of promises were made post-apartheid, and perhaps they were unrealistic, but they were made, and people are now fed up."
Matlwa points out that medicine has always been her first love. Writing "was really just a hobby, and I am really grateful to God that it turned out to be more than that." She borrows the words of another doctor who was also a famous writer to explain her twin careers. "Anton Chekhov said it best: 'Medicine is his wife and writing his mistress.' I don't think I'll ever choose between the two," she explains.
Beyond 'Post-Apartheid'
Apartheid may have ended, but Matlwa is acutely aware that political inequality has only given way to economic inequality in contemporary South Africa. "What's made us dig deep and ask ourselves hard questions is that this inequality has slightly worsened post-apartheid, and it's always been easy to be the victim of apartheid, to blame everything on apartheid, but now we have to ask ourselves hard questions on what we are doing as a country."
Honesty is important to Matlwa, as she does not feel that there is enough of it in her life or in her country. "The conversations I'd have in a room with black friends would change if a white person walked into the room. ... We live apart, we live around each other, and we've learnt to be tolerant. We've learnt words we're no longer allowed to use. ... We've got affirmative action in place, but ... I think there's a lot of anger in the country," she says.
"There's a lot of hurt and disappointment, and I think we just need to start talking."