Author

REMOTEWORDS: Niq, Maboneng is one of the many non-English words that appear in your books “Dog eat Dog“ and “After tears“. Where does “MABONENG“ derives from, what does it mean and why do we find it on a roof in Doornfontain?

Niq Mhlongo: Maboneng literally means “place of light“.  With the discovery of gold in 1886, the year Johannesburg was founded, the city attracted migrant workers from all over the world, who sought light and tried to find their fortune in Jozi Maboneng. “Maboneng“ derives originally from the Sotho languages but now is used by all indigenous South African language groups. Doornfontein as one of the first parts of Johannesburg was one of the few culturally mixed areas until 1934, when the people were moved to Sophiatown. The identifying feature of the place was one of cultural diversity and coexistence of different groups. This placed attracted all those people who sought freedom, cultural expression and enlightenment (the Marabi Dance, its language called Tsotsitaal and the shebeens originated from this place and migrated to different areas later).
(Tsotsi = villain, shebeen = Beer Bar)

REMOTEWORDS: People where forcefully removed from Doornfountain to Sophiatown?

Niq Mhlongo: Yes at that time people migrated their culture to Melville. But the reason why people were moved out was that they wanted to prospect more gold in Doornfountain. So Jo’burg was a place of Gold. People from Malawi, from Mosambique and from the rural parts of South Africa came to the place of light.  So Moboneng used to attract the people with light, the glimmer of gold, electricity and so on.  And now the building is going to be a place of light in terms of arts.

REMOTEWORDS: Light is maybe the most important metaphor in the arts. In painting, sculpture, lime light, projection beam…

Niq Mhlongo: And light presents hope.

REMOTEWORDS: That’s right. Furthermore during the discussion of MABONENG we took the  important question: Am I in the place of light or do I see it just from outside? We just did this workshop in Kliptown where people still live without electricity.Can you tell us about Kliptown where lots of people are still sitting in the dark.

Niq Mhlongo: You are quite right actually. Light means hope but in Kliptown for example some of the main problems are not solved yet: the problem of infrastructure and lacking development. That is a pitty for Kliptown with all the history. Because Kliptown was the place where our constitution was firstly thought about in 1955. The freedom carta was born there.

REMOTEWORDS: Was’nt Mandela hidden in Kliptown also?

Niq Mhlongo:  Yes. So it is very historic but the development is really slow and it is not happening where it matters most. They still use the budget system when coming to sanitation, the houses are still informal and so on. There is much more development in Doornfountain the revival of the city has begun already as we express with MABONENG. But not so in Kliptown. So in terms of light: there is not light in Kliptown.

REMOTEWORDS: Indra, Niq, thanks so much for the great collaboration.

This Interview by Indra Wussow, Niq Mhlongo, Uta Kopp and Achim Mohné was done at the writer’s Soweto home in March 2009.

AUTHOR 

Niq Mhlongo

Murhandziwa Nicholas Mhlongo was born in Midway-Chiawelo Soweto, South Africa on the 10th of June 1973. He is the eighth born in a family of ten children. In the belief that he would be spared the violence that characterized most Soweto schools at the time, his parents sent him to Limpopo province (former Northern Province) for his education, and he did both his primary and secondary schooling there. In his matriculation year in 1990, the schools were disrupted, coinciding with the release of former president Nelson Mandela from jail in February of that year. As a consequence of the widespread turmoil at schools in this period, he failed to graduate from high school and had to repeat the grade, which he did successfully in 1991.

Mhlongo faced the typical challenges and difficulties of a unemployed post-school youth in Soweto, but managed to find employment as a part-time as dispatch agent for a company called Republic Umbrella in Johannesburg. In 1994 he enrolled for a BA degree (Bachelor of Arts) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), majoring in African Literature and Political Studies. He completed his degree in 1996 and enrolled for a Law degree (LLB) at the same University in 1997. In 1998 he enrolled at the University of Cape Town, where he continued with his law degree until 2000, when he dropped out of the law school at third year level to write his first novel titled Dog Eat Dog. The novel is an evocative account based on his experience as a young South African of the post-apartheid generation.

He considers his role as a young South African writer to ‘reflect on the changes, whether good or bad, that are taking place around me today. The end of apartheid and our ten years of democracy have posed new challenges, and given us the opportunity as new generation of writers to explore new things. Our contributions to literature today should be to write about issues that are directly facing the youth. We have the responsibility to explore topics such as, HIV/AIDS virus, unemployment, poverty, xenophobia, homosexuality, etc. These are the present issues that most South Africans will identify with, and our writings can help strengthen our democracy and to build a better future.

Curated by Indra Wussow, jozi art:lab