Niq Mhlongo was born in Soweto, Johannesburg in 1973 and grew up beneath apartheid, South Africa’s institutionalised racial segregation beneath white minority rule. He graduated in political research and African literature in 1996 after which studied legislation, however dropped out in his remaining yr to turn out to be a author as an alternative.
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Mhlongo entered the South African literary scene along with his novel Canine Eat Canine (2004). He’s since revealed three extra novels and three brief story collections, and has edited three volumes of writing. Critics have known as him “one of the high-spirited and irreverent new voices of South Africa’s post-apartheid literary scene”.
Mhlongo’s new novel, The Metropolis Is Mine, tells the story of Mangi, who appears to stay a contented life along with his fiancée, Aza, in Linden, a snug Johannesburg suburb. Someday he discovers that Aza owns the home he’s been financing for eight years, a reality she has conveniently hidden from him. What follows is a messy break-up, made worse by Mangi shedding his job. Thrown out of their residence, he finds himself roaming Johannesburg’s streets, residing from hand to mouth. That’s when he’s compelled to reinvent himself.
I’ve performed interviews with Mhlongo over time which have knowledgeable my analysis on modern South African fiction. I spoke with him about his new ebook.
Olivier Moreillon: What had been some sources of inspiration for This Metropolis is Mine?
Niq Mhlongo: I’m fascinated by cities. I’m additionally a journey author and have written essays and journalistic items about Johannesburg. I needed to do it within the type of a novel. I now stay in Berlin. To have a look at and write about my residence metropolis from afar, to pay homage to it, was form of a therapeutic factor for me. It has introduced us again collectively. In This Metropolis Is Mine, I have a look at Johannesburg’s underbelly and a number of the modifications it has undergone.
My early work and this new novel juxtapose Johannesburg in two totally different occasions. This allowed me to replicate on town. Canine Eat Canine was set in 1994. The town was nonetheless sorted. Now it’s all falling to items. It’s unhappy to see public inner-city areas such because the Johannesburg Artwork Gallery or the Johannesburg Public Library shut and be taken over by homeless individuals, drug pushers and avenue hustlers.
Kwela
Johannesburg is town of gold, each actually and metaphorically. There are unlawful gold miners, for instance, but additionally people who find themselves merely searching for a greater life. However Johannesburg has all the time been “town of damaged desires”. Most find yourself dissatisfied. However now I believe there’s additionally a deliberate neglect of town.
Olivier Moreillon: The novel jogged my memory of your fellow writers and compatriots Mongane Wally Serote’s and Lesego Rampolokeng’s well-known poems – revealed in 1972 and 1990 respectively – that discover Johannesburg’s advanced and troublesome previous as a magnet for labourers searching for work on gold mines. Had been these texts formative?
Niq Mhlongo: Indirectly, however writers like them have doubtlessly had an enormous affect on my writing. I bear in mind in 1990, we used to take heed to Rampolokeng’s poetry on a cassette. Writers like Mbulelo Mzamane, mama Miriam Tlali and Sandile Memela have written about Johannesburg. My reference is just not deliberate, however their work has discovered its means into my writing indirectly.
I additionally rely loads on bodily analysis. I all the time stroll the areas I write about, these areas that folks assume are usually not walkable. My walks and psychological notes are additionally influenced by my readings.
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Olivier Moreillon: One main theme of your new novel is love. To what extent is it a love letter to Johannesburg, a metropolis identified for its crime?
Niq Mhlongo: That’s a pleasant means of placing it. Sure, it’s a love letter. Johannesburg is just not a one-sided metropolis, and that’s the principle factor I really like about it. It’s repeatedly altering. Whereas some components of the inner-city could also be decaying, there are different locations which are very a lot up-and-coming, new cultural hubs, scholar hubs…
Having lived in Johannesburg, I discover it simpler to barter different areas. Residing in a harmful metropolis provides you that braveness of being elsewhere, and with that comes a stage of maturity. If you happen to don’t develop eyes at the back of your head, you received’t survive in Joburg. It’s a college with out a professor.
Olivier Moreillon: Aza is Mangi’s fiancée. He leaves their residence and later grows hooked up to a intercourse employee known as Boni. What had been you hoping to attain with two such reverse characters?
Niq Mhlongo: If we have a look at intercourse staff, we’re speaking about individuals who have all the time been stigmatised, and as an alternative of being seen, they’re typically minimised and even dehumanised. Folks don’t care what their names are. Folks don’t care about something they do.
In the meantime, there’s this concept of residence being linked to like, however there are houses which are horrible, after which one has to seek out solace, typically in essentially the most surprising locations. Love doesn’t all the time come from the individuals that you just assume love you. Linden is meant to be residence for Mangi. It’s stunning, however there’s no love.
And residential is commonly compelled on individuals. For a very long time, apartheid and its laws demarcated the place an individual’s house is. Linden turns into a house that’s compelled on Mangi due to his relationship with Aza, solely to seek out out that she has been mendacity. In a while, he lives inside his automotive, which turns into his new residence. Then he lives beneath a bridge. It turns into a house, too. So, residence turns into a frame of mind, actually.
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Olivier Moreillon: Despite the fact that the novel broaches many critical points, it’s also filled with humorous moments. What half did humour play?
Niq Mhlongo: It’s not one thing that I do intentionally, however I’ve discovered that it’s vital to incorporate lighter components whenever you write about tough matters. If there was no humour in me writing about Mangi residing beneath the bridge, studying that story wouldn’t be simple to abdomen and it may need turn out to be much less accessible.
Olivier Moreillon: What’s subsequent from Niq Mhlongo?
Niq Mhlongo: You realize me, there’s all the time a couple of story bustling round my head. My subsequent ebook is known as Doppelgänger, which I’ve been placing on maintain for a very long time. The ebook is ready in present-day South Africa and its story unravels backwards in direction of the apartheid previous.
