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“As I lifted my eyes, they landed on some deep chocolate eyes with long eyelashes right across me. Our eyes locked for a few seconds longer than normal. That was awkward, I thought and looked away.” – Pumza Shabangu With the massive success of the fifty shades trilogy, there’s been a renewed interest in literary erotica. Of course, as The Cheeky Natives, we were particularly interested in literary erotica we could relate to outside of the vanilla world mentioned earlier. This is where Pumza Shabangu’s novel ‘Unspoken truths’ is a welcomed breath of fresh air. This novel is centered around the lives of picture-perfect couple, Thando and Bongani, whose lives are changed by events no one could’ve foreseen. There is a narrative of love lost and gained but of far greater interest is the love lives of these characters. The sex scenes in this book are what some of your favourite erotica writers wish they could do. In this book, we can see that Black characters live multidimensional lives, with interesting and often complex love lives. In this novel, Pumza covers a variety of relationships, both heterosexual and queer with the depth and respect they require. She allows the reader to question some deeply held beliefs about love, sexuality and culture and the intersection of all this. Pumza explores relatively uncharted waters in black South African literary erotica and in writing this book. At one of our possibly most fun events, packed to the rafters with lovers of the book and erotica, Pumza Shabangu sat down to go into depth about the themes of love, culture, relationships and of course sex.Twitter: @cheekynatives :@Pumza_Shabangu

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“I imagined a dying person’s last breath as something resembling an exclamation mark, distinct and hanging mid-air like an interrupted thought. My older sister Fikile’s last breath before she dies is nothing of the sort. There is no rattling noise at the back of her throat. No relentless twitching. No clinging to life. Fikile dies with no more fuss than a switch of a light bulb.” — Nozizwe Jele Nozizwe Jele first caught our attention with her debut novel “Happiness is a four letter word” and the subsequent movie, which both garnered massive acclaim. This was followed by an eight-year hiatus where we patiently waited for more.Nozizwe did not disappoint. In our first podcast for the year, The Cheeky Natives sat down to discuss her latest novel “The Ones with Purpose.” A novel dealing with heartbreaking themes of grief, illness, mortality, family, rape culture, patriarchy and the ways in which substance abuse has far reaching effects on families.The novel begins with the death of the oldest daughter, Fikile from cancer and captures the journey her younger sister Anele must undergo as the family’s bona fide caretaker.Their youngest sibling Mbuso has long distanced himself from his family, a swift exit that only patriarchy would facilitate while the rest of the family has to deal with Fikile’s death and Ma’s previously messy past. There are many difficult questions posed by this book, questions of reconciliation and forgiveness.Although the book is centred around the women in this book, Jele doesn’t exempt the men. From the philandering husband to the younger brother lost to his rage, there is something poignantly relatable to the storytelling in this book.The Cheeky Natives sat down to discuss the themes of the book but also to have a broader conversation regarding the art of writing difficult themes and what it means to craft stories that sit with readers long after they’ve finished reading your book.In a conversation filled with many laughs, sadness but also as our beloved aunty Oprah would put it “lightbulb moments”.Twitter: @cheekynatives Twitter: @JeleCynthia

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“By unflinchingly depicting people in a township getting on with the everyday business of being themselves without the overarching gaze of whiteness, Yizo Yizo showcased that we were and are not as integrated as those Castle adverts had been leading us to believe. To say that Yizo Yizo is the greatest TV series of all time would sound hyperbolic to some, but what is certain is that in South Africa, the show provided a much-needed departure from the drib-drab, pedestrian television that had taken over in the ‘reconciliation’-fuelled 1990s. It served as a marquee for teaching audiences how entertaining self-reflection could be. A marquee that was later occupied by the likes of Gazlam, Tsha-Tsha, and, to a lesser extent, The Lab and Home Affairs." – Sihle Mthembu Born to Kwaito is the first of its kind. This book is written by young Black South Africans reflecting on Kwaito as a uniquely South African created culture. The book is not only about the music, it is also about the people, the style that emerged and all the politics that it represents. Dr Alma-Nalisha Cele and Letlhogonolo Mokgoorane sat down to have a conversation with the wonderful Sihle Mthembu as we discussed the debut collection of essays he and Esinako Ndabeni wrote using Kwaito as a lens for the exploration of such a powerful moment in South Africa. The juxtaposition between the anthropological insights and musical history of some of the music that formed the soundtrack of young Black South Africans is a marvel. There is a beautiful contrast between Sihle and Esinako’s views bringing to the fore a trans-generational view of a genre that shaped the musical lives of so many young Black South Africans. The Cheeky Natives sat in a wonderful conversation with Sihle to discuss what it means for a ‘genre to die’. The conversation would be incomplete if we didn’t discuss the humanity and challenges of some of the genre’s biggest artist. As Esinako said at Abanu Book Festival: “I feel uncomfortable when we talk about the death of genres because how can we kill something that still exists? I have a Kwaito playlist on my phone.”

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“Every morning Portia paraded down Pritchard Street to the offices where she worked on the corner of Market Street and Von Brandis Street. Even though her shoes squashed her corns and made her feet swell she bit down the pain and soldiered on. She practiced walking in her heels diligently in her apartment. Many times before she had fallen flat on her face leaving her son reeling with laughter. However, Portia was determined to master the art of walking in high heels like her work colleagues at Hulisani, Hirsch, Hlomani and Associates” - Sue Nyathi Sue Nyathi was born and raised in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and resides in Johannesburg. She is debut novel The Polygamist was self-published in 2012, which will be adapted into a film in 2019. The year 2008 was an important for both Zimbabwe and South Africa. This year saw Zimbabwe in a crisis, the economic meltdown caused havoc in Zimbabwe. This led to a surge of moves from Zimbabwe to South Africa. The Gold Diggers, Sue’s second novel, explores the effect of the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe. This meltdown introduces us to a group of people huddled in a taxi journeying into the city of Gold: Johannesburg. The book narrates the story of Portia, Dumisani, Chamunorwa, Chenai, Nkosi, a mother and her son and Gugulethu. These characters feel so similar that they become your friends and their lives become yours. This book skillfully tells the lives of this various people in a humane and respectful, it provides a powerful narrative about the effect of migration and starting over. This episode commences with Sue reading from the book, then immediately we delve into various themes that emerge of the telling of the various people’s story. We talk about tribalism and later xenophobic in South Africa. Sue explains the process of writing the book and how it converged with her own move to South Africa. We discuss privilege and education and how these locations allow people to navigate the precarious Johannesburg. We also talk about the power of language in dehumanizing people and how patriarchy remains harmful.

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“To imagine these women is to face their questions. They are difficult. They are painful. They are necessary. We cannot turn away even as we know in our hearts that we collectively fear facing these women because they will demand that their questions be answered. We know that their questions will release a torrent of granite boulders that will destroy the versions of us and the nation that we hold dear even when they harm us in ways untold. The force of their questions will surely crush the old certainties cast in Zimbabwe’s great house of stone. And then, what will become of us? Who will we be?” - Panashe Chigumadzi Panashe Chigumadzi is a Zimbabwean born writer. She was raised in South Africa. Panashe is an award-winning author. Her debut novel Sweet Medicine, published by Blackbird Books in 2015, won the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award. Her sophomore book, a long reflective essay, These Bones Will Rise Again recently won Best Author at the fifth Zimbabwe International Women’s Award. These Bones Will Rise Again is a reflective long essay on the ‘coup that was not a coup’ in Zimbabwe. This reflection is done through the telling of history through the eyes of various womxn in her own family and the history of Zimbabwe. She writes about the history of chimurenga and the role of womxn in the liberation project in Zimbabwe. In this episode, we sat down with the prodigious Panashe pondering on her latest offering. The conversation was filled with musings on the erasure of Black womxn in history. We spoke about Mbuya Nehanda and the meaning of the ‘Big C AND small c’ chimurenga. The conversation led us to topics about the Big men in Zimbabwe, the role of music in Zimbabwe’s liberation project. In many ways, the conversation was a journey in Panashe’s own history. Throughout the conversation, we encountered various parts of Panashe – the granddaughter, the historian, the Zimbabwean, the born free, the outsider and the writer. We spend moments being ruminative about Robert Mugabe and Grace Mugabe as key figures in Zimbabwe. The conversation highlighted the various ways in which womxn and men are reported in history, through respectability politics and taking up of space. We spoke about the meaning of language in knowing and telling histories and other musings about spirituality, a theme prevalent in both Panashe’s books. The conversation touched on a number of other important topics such as the future of Zimbabwe under the new leadership. We also asked Panashe about her favourite writers, and her prestigious PhD undertaking at Harvard University. Panashe’s book is archiving Black womxn and their stories, it can be received as academic text about reimagining Black womxnhood and the telling of histories.Twitter: @PanasheChig Twitter: @cheekynatives

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‘History dooms us to condemn the guiltless (and ourselves with them) when we don’t choose mercy over sacrifice. Homophobia in God’s name is horseshit. The blasphemer who condemns gays in the name of God loves neither gays nor God. No one who hates his brother, whom he has seen, can claim to love God, whom he has not seen, for all we know, God could be lesbian’ – Siya Khumalo, You Have to be Gay to Know God.This paragraph ends Siya’s timely and poignant memoir ‘You have to be Gay to Know God’. Siya describes himself as someone who enjoys writing on religion, politics and sex. He calls it the trifecta of religion. His memoir allows us to journey with him through various stages of his life and evolve with him as he grows. It sheds some light on his life with family, both immediate and distant. It touches on his first boy crush and the lengths he went through to achieve this crush. It tells the story of him joining the military and then later deciding to leave it because of his sexuality. He also allows us to know intimate details about his life, in particular his sex life. He uses the telling of his story to provide social commentary about the politics of South Africa and how they can be used to subjugate people in the LBGT community. He powerfully critiques the Constitution and the way people have interpreted the Bible to exclude and shame people who identity as being part of the LBGT community. He also talks about love, coming out and the beauty of being gay.In this episode of the podcast, Letlhogonolo sat with Siya to discuss this book. They conversed about love, family, religion and social issues. A deeply personal conversation about being gay and Christian. This book adds to the cannon on African queer literature. As Letlhogonolo once described it in an interview: “It is not a queer book, it is a book about prejudice”. Twitter: @SKhumalo1987Twitter: @Cheekynatives

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“I studied for the whole year without paying the university, so I was in debt. I was hungry for success. But, during that year, I was physically hungry, too. It was difficult to study and do well when you had an empty stomach and, added to that, were not going to see your results at the end of the semester. I knew that I was paying the price of fitting into previously white spaces that had suddenly become accessible ‘for all’.” — Clinton Chauke, Born in Chains: The Diary of an Angry ‘Born-Free’ This episode features Clinton Chauke. He is the youngest author we have had on our podcast. This is the first podcast recorded we recorded since Letlhogonolo’s return from the US. Clinton writes a poignant memoir that chronicles life as an angry Born-Free. He starts his memoir by recounting the lives of many South African in “post”- apartheid who are still saddled with the shackles of poverty. He then proceeds to highlight the influx of transient movement that often plagues poor people, moving between the city and the homeland. Clinton grapples with a lot of issues in the telling of his story. He speaks about family dynamics, the erasure of the role of Black women in our lives, the toxic manifestation of fragile masculinity. He speaks frankly about the disparities of public education both inside and outside the classroom. He laments that the state of the township and how it is not conducive to excelling in high school, and that those who excel aren’t the norm but the exception. He then continues to explore how religion was a crutch that held him together but later become something that he hated. He speaks about his journey with higher education and how difficult that was. He also touches on varsity love and the complexities that comes with wanting to date. He also found himself as one of the students burdened by the high cost of higher education and taking a stance against the system by being part of the #FeesMustFall movement. He also explores issues around racism, tribalism, colourism, and xenophobic.This book is a reminder that democracy did not come to change the lives of many South Africans, it reminds us that freedom is far from coming. It is a sober, hauntingly beautiful account of life as a ‘Born-Free’ in South Africa. As Clinton writes: “my fellow South Africans should read my story because I believe that, in it, we can call see ourselves. Its central message is to reject the ‘born-free’ label, which many people love to romanticise, forgetting its implications.”

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' "Why don’t we do that now? Paint?” Grace tried.And Mary would exhale the wordless sigh of a woman who had surrendered her dreams to the world too soon.' -Grace, a novel by Barbara BoswellDr Barbara Boswell(@BobbiBoswell) is an African feminist, writer, lecturer and mother whose novel “Grace” is the subject of our last edition of our Women in Literature series for the month of August.Grace is a deeply reflective account of a family living with the terror of domestic violence. Perhaps what makes this living reality even more frightening is the common knowledge of this reality held by the community in silence. Grace follows the life of a young girl in this family from childhood to adult life and paints a vivid picture of the lasting effects of having been a witness and victim to such intimately personal violence. The novel explores both the complicity of communities in which these victims live and the beliefs that allow a culture of abuse to flourish. In a year in which so much more attention has been paid to the crisis of Gender-Based Violence we continue to find ourselves in as a country, this podcast is timeous.What began as random scribbles as a form of catharsis for Dr Boswell, herself an adult survivor of childhood marred by domestic violence is a powerful account of the seen and unseen effects of this experience long after it has occurred in the confines what should have been a safe space.There are moments of deep grief, tragedy and pain in what is a fictional account but in many ways could be the written account of a survivor of this violence.In reading Grace, one is forced to sit deeply with the themes of silence, complicity and generational trauma. There is a beautiful complexity in the exploration of mother-daughter relationships, both biological and not. There are powerful questions of redemption posed for both victim and perpetrator for readers to grapple with.Dr Barbara Boswell holds a Ph.D. in Women's Studies from the University of Maryland. She is currently a Professor in the department of English Literature at the University of Cape Town.Dr Alma-Nalisha Cele (@alma_nalisha) sat down with her to discuss her compelling novel, “Grace” along with many of the themes mentioned earlier. In her own quietly reflective way Dr Boswell reveals some wonderful meditations on grief and loss.

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'Motherhood is not for me, because what if - like heart disease and haemophila - the ability to abandon one's own children is hereditary? it's not a risk I'm prepared to take.' - Sara-Jayne King Sara-Jayne King is British South African journalist and writer who has travelled the world in her quest for identity while working as a renowned journalist. Her memoir “Killing Karoline” is both heart-breaking and inspiring about a child born out an illegal relationship in the 1980’s who existence is effectively denied out of embarrassment and prejudices not confronted.What becomes of a child whose existence is defined by shame? What does the reclamation of self look like when a pivotal figure in that self relegates your very existence to the annals of their deepest regrets?These and some more poignant themes are covered in this powerful memoir. The themes of race, transracial adoptions, relationships and the subsequent traumas feature quite prominently in this memoir. Sara-Jayne King writes honestly about the painful realities behind the “Kumbaya” moments associated with transracial adoption. In many ways Killing Karoline is a coming of age and identity as we watch Sara-Jayne grapple with micro-aggressions that so many Black women can relate to.Sara-Jayne courageously writes about her struggles with her mental health in ways that feel honest but without dishonouring her truth.We watch her confront her demons and in the process learn that sometimes healing is in the work. On the first anniversary of her poignant memoir, “Killing Karoline.” Dr Alma-Nalisha Cele sat down with the ineffable Sara-Jayne King to discuss her memoir and the transcendental journey it has travelled near and far. This conversation is marked with an authenticity and honesty that is echoed throughout her memoir, the conversation was equal parts illuminating, humorous and thought-provoking. Killing Karoline is a powerful introspection on identity, reclamation of self and the questioning of things we hold true.

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‘She comes to me in snatches - I remember pieces of her laugh, the look she gave when she was upset. Sometimes I sniff the bottle of perfume of hers that I saved, but it doesn't come close to the robustness of her smell. It is her, flattened. This is what it's really like to lose. It is complete and irreversible. How pernicious these little things called memories are. They barbed me once, but now that I no longer have many of them, I am devastated.’ — Zinzi Clemmons, What We LoseZinzi Clemmons was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father. Her debut novel, What We Lose is about a young woman coming of age while navigating loss, difficult relationships and self identity. Written as auto fiction in both emotional and poignant prose. In this episode, Dr Alma-Nalisha Cele sat down with Zinzi to discuss her novel. Zinzi recalls talking a creative writing class in college and how that sparks her writing journey. Alma-Nalisha and Zinzi have a frank conversation about writing, literature and her book which Alma-Nalisha describes as ‘a deeply personal meditation on loss is and how we deal with grief’. The discussion touches of a myriad of topics such as grief, identity, relationships, mental health, displacement, sex, race, mortality and other musings. Both lighthearted and but deeply reflective. This is a powerful conversation on our interaction with loss, grief and relationships.

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