Nthikeng Mohlele On Writing #interview by Abigail George

Nthikeng Mohlele was partly raised in Limpopo and Tembisa Township, and attended the University of the Witwatersrand, where he obtained a BA in dramatic art, publishing studies and African literature.

At last count, he is the author of eight critically acclaimed novels and two short story collections: The novels The Scent of Bliss (2008), Small Things (2013), Rusty Bell (2014), Pleasure (2016), Michael K (2018), Illumination (2019) and a short-story collection, The Discovery of Love (2021). A short story collection “A Little Light” (2023) and a novel Breasts, etc (2023), was shortlisted for both the University of Johannesburg and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences Awards 2024). This year his book Revolutionaries House: A Novel was published.

Nthikeng was the winner of the University of Johannesburg Prize for South African Writing in English, winner of the K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award, winner of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences Award for Best Fiction: Short Stories and was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award.

His work is meditative, powerful, tenderness-personified and nourishes both psyche and mind. Here I am, a poet, in conversation with him, a novelist, on a Spring afternoon, embracing the silence at my desk in my office space while listening to the rain fall outside my window. I listen to Joan Armatrading's Drop the Pilot and hum along to the words 'animal’ and 'mineral’. I make myself a cup of tea and a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich before looking at his texts. Woven into his texts are ‘wildflowers made of iron’. His preparation of becoming a writer is revealed succinctly in his sensitive and thoughtful answers below. He counts the books of one of the finest Russian writers of his generation as a favourite. I am just a poet who writes novels. He is a deep thinker (on another level, believe me), an intellectual, a thought-leader, a reflective visionary who writes short stories and novels with consummate elegance. It really seems to come to him effortlessly, and with palpable ease.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
What do you think are the challenges facing a South African in the cultural and socio-economic atmosphere we find ourselves in today, in the micro-climate that we are living in in Africa today and talk to us about some of the more vital aspects of your writing?

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
First; are remnants of the exploitative and unequal history of South Africa —— repression that manifested in poisoned flowering of artistic practice and spaces. The arts administration and commerce policies of the past, ones that included unwarranted and intrusive censorship, have in many ways thwarted the abundant maturation of personal agency and social identities in artistic imagination and expression. My view is that systematic, policy and resource deformities of the Apartheid era still manifest in most if not all normal functioning of arts and culture —— even though significant interventions have been recorded post 1994 —— towards redress and equitable distribution of resources. Global sanctions and exclusions of South African artistic output, that framing of South Africa as a pariah state, means that there is catching up as regards the country, its foreign policy within a community of nations. The thirty years of democracy are nothing short of miraculous, in rethinking and imagining a coherent nation state; one of sane legislation and democratic sentiments. Constitutionalism. Unity in Diversity. Africentricism: these are part of guiding lights in the restoration of art as a critical component of human progress and; deciding around what constitutes South Africa’s heritage.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
What makes you happy or sad about being a poet and writer from South Africa/Africa living in South Africa today and do you feel people look up to you in some ways? Why do you think they look up to you? What makes you tick, think and who do you feel the most empathy for in today's society?

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
I try never to involve my personal feelings and biography in my work. I also don’t think of myself as a poet —— in the classical and practitioner sense. I am pleased when a work of art, say a novel or short story, resonates with my creative intentions and aesthetics as regards execution. I am wary of being, even by accident, a poster child of this or that; and much prefer to confine my engagements with fellow citizens and art practitioners as a spiritual bond, rather than a hierarchical relationship that might very well be vain and misguided. I think artworks must earn their keep in society and, I am as such not much concerned if anyone looks up to me or not. What makes me tick? Beauty. Nature. A child’s innocence. Temperate relations. Arresting design —— in architecture and photography; automobiles. Motion pictures, Music. My children.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
What is a live reading like of your work like? Any hobbies? What is the meaning of "peace", "poetry" and "in war" to you. Do you and what is if you do, your message of hope to the world?

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
I much prefer when others read my work out loud, because I am, in essence, a man of too few words. I am also overly sensitive to overly extroverted behaviour —— and will always default to silence whenever social scenarios compel me to act out of character or; speak when I would rather think and be quiet. I am aware of the serious limitations this  handicap imposes on my work and personhood; and always try to accommodate friends and colleagues in my sometimes awkward worlds of too much silence. Message of hope for the world: I think global capitalism, recent shifts in geopolitical architecture (i.e BRICS, the Global South); global warming and nuclear armed states —— suggests that there are not monolithic and homogeneous messages of hope to be given. In other words, the world is much more complex than fleeting, one line slogans.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
Who and what inspires you creatively as a writer? What series or films have inspired characters in your books, have inspired you creatively? What moves you? Moving images or the written word? What made you want to be a writer, did a teacher at school believe in you, and do you keep a journal? Is there anything else you would like to share?

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
I am inspired by nature and human beings —— in their varied triumphs and skulduggery. I try to avoid sampling characters resultant from screenwriting in literary fiction; because, in part, the tempo and creative canvas between motion pictures and novels is vastly different. There are particularities between the camera lens and a pen and; specific outcomes as it relates to perspective, sensory involvement, imaginative participation. I am moved by both the written word, moving images and the sonic landscapes of music. Yes —— indeed, a Sepedi teacher of mine greatly encouraged my essay writing and storytelling; and my tertiary institution teachers taught me how to frame and problematise complex thoughts. How to doubt. Reflect. Emphasise. To intellectually rebel. How to integrate seemingly divergent and incongruous ideas; generally contested worldviews. Wits University is my alma mater, you see, so that might very well be one of the best places to be.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
What are your favourite music and books in no particular order:

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
I read and listen to music seasonally and cyclically. High level….

Books: Fydor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground, J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of the Yellow Sun. I also love me some Ben Okri, Saul Bellow, Dambudzo Marechera, Bessie Head and Toni Morrisson.

Music: Miles Davis. Thandiswa Mazwai. Salif Keita. Ali Farka Toure. Bob Marley. Jimi Hendrix. Adele. Rihanna. Oliver Mtukudzi. Leonard Dembo —— among a dizzying combination of other musicians from around the world.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
I count The Idiot by Dostoyevsky as an influence. Recently in my poetry and poetric prose I have been inspired by the poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, the enigmatic Boris Pasternak, then there's Tolstoy, the Russian composers but I always come back to the poets. What kind of films inspire you?

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
Shaka Zulu, Apocalypse Now, Schindler’s List, Malcolm X, Glory, Philadelphia, and The Godfather —— among thousands of other motion pictures.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
What motivated you to write doing the pandemic? 

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
I did not write during the pandemic.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
Who are the poets and writers that influence your writing, that inspire you?

Writers: Please refer to my earlier answer about my favourite books.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
What motivates you?

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
Being alive —— thinking, feeling, existing.

ABIGAIL GEORGE
Can you give us a quote by your favourite writer?

NTHIKENG MOHLELE
Excerpt from Herzog (Saul Bellow)

“If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me,” thought Moses Herzog. Some people thought he was cracked and for a time he himself had doubted that he was all there. But now, though he still behaved oddly, he felt confident, cheerful, clairvoyant, and strong.”

Nthikeng Mohlele texts me that he has multiple deadlines coming; so he thought that he should prioritize this interview (see my interview questions) today. Our interview has come to an end. I am grateful for his time. The rain has stopped. The sun has come out. The afternoon is edging closer to suppertime. Long live the acute words, and the graceful language of the South African short story writer and novelist, the enigmatic and articulate Nthikeng Mohlele. Interviewing him was most certainly an education. He is on another planet. He is embarking on the next chapter of South Africa's history, another day in a hardwon democracy, another page. Long live your innate competency with the pen, unique and original storyteller.