BOOK REVIEW: Nthikeng Mohlele’s sixth novel takes a musical turn

Music is at the heart of Nthikeng Mohlele’s latest novel, his sixth, calledIt focuses on a jazz musician and composer, Bantubonke, a man out of tune with fads. He is ageing, his cherished wife is living away from him in France, studying for a degree. Bantubonke has suffered an injury to his mouth — which means he can no longer play as he once could.

As to the central theme of loss — in terms of ageing, in terms of losing one’s skills and one’s wife — I ask how he came to understand this process. “I’ve always been an old soul, and I’ve always been aware of age and ageing. My character demanded it, he needed to have lived to have that level of catharsis. If he were 28 that would have made no sense.”

And yet this is a story firmly set in the fabric of its time. Johannesburg looms as a character: “At once inspiring and scandalous, Johannesburg has a beautiful arrogance about it, a refusal to succumb to comparisons, an insistence on setting standards, breaking life rules.”

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