Mhlongo wordt geprezen als een van de meest geestige en onbevreesde nieuwe stemmen in het post-apartheidsliteraire landschap van Zuid-Afrika. Zijn werk, vertaald in het Spaans en Italiaans, wordt gekenmerkt door een gedurfde en onconventionele aanpak. Hij studeerde aanvankelijk Afrikaanse literatuur en politicologie voordat hij zich aan het schrijven wijdde. Door middel van zijn verhalen biedt Mhlongo een levendig en onderscheidend perspectief op de hedendaagse Zuid-Afrikaanse samenleving.
Bafana (nicknamed Advo for advocate), is a young man with a weight on his shoulders. After flunking his law studies at UCT, he now has to find a way to either admit the truth to his family, or somehow find a job that will allow him to continue fooling them.
This short story collection is filled with memorable characters, intriguing plots and twist endings. With his keen observations and insights into human nature, Mhlongo explores the things people do for each other, but also to each other. Injustice, corruption, love and desire are just some of the aspects of human interaction featured here.A family refuses to leave when the bank repossesses their house; stalking has an unexpected outcome; a desensitised morgue manager is spooked; and more!
"Raucous and darkly humorous, 'Dog eat dog' is narrated by Dingamanzi Makhedama Njomane, a college student in South Africa who spends his days partying, skipping class, and picking up girls. But Dingz, as he is known to his friends, is living in charged times, and his discouraging college life plays out against the backdrop of South Africa{u2019}s first democratic elections, the spread of AIDS, and financial difficulties that threaten to force him out of school"--From publisher description
"In his first collection of short stories, acclaimed author Niq Mhlongo confronts the span of ... [South Africa's] democracy and the madness of the last twenty years after apartheid. He takes an unflinching look at urban and rural South Africa, which he explores through themes such as racism, xenophobia, homophobia, crime, land distribution and economic inequality. Stylistically satirical and piercing, the stories combine Mhlongo's street-smart realism with a truly South African magical realism" -- Back cover.
Kimathi Tito has it all. As a child of the revolution, born in exile in Tanzania, he has steadily accumulated wealth and influence since arriving in South Africa in 1991. But even though everything appears just peachy from outside the walls of his mansion in Bassonia, things are far from perfect for Comrade Kimathi. After a messy divorce, accelerated by his gambling habit and infidelities, he is in danger of losing everything. And now, to top it all, he's seeing ghosts. Sometimes what happens in exile doesn't stay in exile.A caustic critique of South Africa's political elite from the author of Dog Eat Dog and After Tears (both recently reissued).