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Afro Punk Johannesburg 2018 Day 1. #afropunk #afropunkjhb #afropunk2018 #umuzi #milkandoj #photography (at Johannesburg, Gauteng) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsTSHwxHrCi/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1s8hc3s3lc6am

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Afro Punk Johannesburg 2018 🚥 #afropunk #afropunkjhb #afropunkxumuzi #umuzi #milkandoj (at Johannesburg, Gauteng) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsTO6RIHTVd/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=sq7x01zydbti

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        “The Ascending Young Literary Voice”

Main Photo by: Giorgia Fanelli By: Thanduxolo “Thandz” Buti

He has been hailed as a rich and poignant voice on the literature landscape. His debut novel, The Reactive, received universal acclaim, locally and internationally, even scoring him an international publishing deal with an option to adapt it into a movie. Masande may have grown up around the often overlooked small town in the Eastern Cape, Bisho, but he has managed to sprout out as a formidable talent in the literature circuit. And his accolades can attest that he is the one watch.

This is my conversation with him that covers everything from Literature, social development and education.

When did you first realise the power of your pen? Masande:I began writing when I was fourteen, and decided I wanted to be an author the year after. In the previous year, I’d been drawing and writing comics with a friend of mine from primary school. It was only after having written a composition in class, when a teacher asked me if I wanted to be an author that I answered in the affirmative. It was an idea that stuck with me.

We share the hometown, which is King Williams Town. How would you say the town influenced your journey as a writer? Masande: King was a strange place in those years, in that it was strangely cosmopolitan for a small town in the Eastern Cape. Perhaps this was due to the seeping in of capital in black communities and the growing middle class, which would’ve been optimistic and multi-cultural back then—we had access to video games, arguably our first version of the internet, as well as the internet itself, and for already media fixated prepubescents, we absorbed everything we could. There was also the library, of course. In the end, I suppose it was being in this liminal space, hinged between the town and its modernity, as well as my rural home and its tradition that influenced my perspective.

What’s your take on the deterioration of the town, especially on the education side? I know in my township, Zwelitsha, they closed down the local library and many schools still don’t have libraries. Masande: It’s disheartening.Most young people have left, over the years, but I’ve noticed that some are starting to return now. The province as a whole suffers from gross municipal neglect, as we all know, and I feel this is something that demands attention more and more each year. There are people who are trying to combat the situation. For example, the Steve Biko Centre in Ginsberg is a great start as a cultural initiative. They host the annual Steve Biko lectures, as well as a number of book events. In fact, they were kind enough to invite me to launch my novel there on December, last year.

What motivated you when you were a young man growing up in an underdeveloped area to read and write? Masande: I was a curious and I suppose, to some degree, a somewhat isolated child. I had a desire to see my sensibility reflected in a way that I couldn’t discover in my immediate surroundings, but instead, could later find through art. I liked anything that had surprising and imaginative elements in it. Maybe it was form of nourishment, or a respite from the normative culture that surrounded me. Are there any particular books or authors that ignited the literature flame in you? Masande: Perhaps Stephen King and Chuck Palahniuk in early high-school. Imagination and disaffection in order?

What sort of hurdles did you face as a young author trying to get their work published? Masande: I didn’t’ really struggle. I think I’ve been fortunate in that when I decided to start trying, it was perhaps the right time to do so. That said, I also wrote most of my early work for myself, as a form of seeking solace, and didn’t really consider publication at the time—only the act of creating something. It was only after I’d finished a handful of stories that I thought I could send them out, as a way of contributing to the same landscape, I guess, that had nourished me when I’d needed it to.

When was the turning point for you as an author and what did it teach you about the journey towards becoming an author? Masande: It was when I finished and published my first story in high-school. It gave me access to a community of readers and writers—other misfits—and resulted in a relationship that affirmed that it was possible for people to share the same experience of my work when reading it, that I had when conceiving it.

You have a Masters Degree in Creative writing but your first degree was in Film and media. Can you tell me about why you first went with Film and Media? Masande: I still had English as major during my first degree, which I followed up with honours in English Studies and finally, the Masters. Still, I began with Film and Media because I’ve always been interested in film, in addition to writing. In high school, when I wrote and published my first work, I was also teaching myself how to write film scripts; I think I had three by then. I first heard of you when you won the pen International New Voices Award. What was your initial response when you heard you won the award and what doors did it open for you? Masande: I was both surprised and pleased. It was really helpful. I received a lot of requests from different publishers, as well as an email from an agent in New York, before settling on Umuzi. I know many say that accolades don’t really matter; it’s the work that matters. In your view what is the significance of accolades, especially to an emerging writer? Masande: They matter for money, as well as exposure to more opportunities in regards to sustaining yourself in the profession, which can often be a challenge, as most people know. You’re right. However, they aren’t the point. Now let’s talk about your book, The Reactive, which has been hailed as a masterpiece. What inspired you to write such a poignant story? Masande: I struggled with the book for some time. I wanted to write a contemporary South African novel, one that could use Cape Town as a microcosm for South Africa. The first draft was sprawling, in terms of theme, with riffs on all the things in the country I was interested in; from technology to terminal illness. Still, the book lacked impetus, I thought, and it was then that I knew I would have to drive it, almost in the sense of a machine, with an engine that was close to me—in other words, I had to populate it with a problem I could relate to. It was then that I took a step back from the project and questioned my own fixation with writing it, and from there, I took a step further and observed the people around me, who were as equally engaged in their own endeavors. It was only then that I realized that we were all similarly driven by a desire to survive, to make use of our lives, and I began to wonder about what could happen if that order was reversed. If someone didn’t shy away from mortality, from resignation, but approached it as a way of seeking out the meaning of their existence. Having realized that like most people, I was intimidated by mortality, I then knew I wanted to explore the thread of someone who felt different about it, too see what I could learn from them. You said you were first inspired to write the story in King Williams Town. As someone born in the town did that make it easier to tell such a bold story? Masande; It did. First of all I moved in back home and that gave me enough time to work on it. Secondly, it put me in immediate contact with some of the themes I was trying to explore, such as poverty and neglect. You dug deep into the scab that is HIV on the novel. What did you learn about the disease and everything that surrounds the pandemic? Masande: I suppose it would have to be the extent to which the illness is both socio-historical and socio-political in South Africa. Having known people who were infected personally, it was this positioning of the illness in our society’s fabric that was most educational, a position that hasn’t managed to shake of some of the difficulties it faced more than ten years ago, in the novel’s time setting, which can be seen in the TAC’s protests this week, calling for the government to release patents for some of the medication, allowing the production of generics, and providing greater and more affordable access to treatment. I believe you got an international publishing deal that includes an option to adapt, The Reactive, into a film. Can you tell more about the deal and how it came about? Masande; Two Dollar Radio, my United States publisher, is a press whose catalogue I’ve admired for a while. They risk publishing daring works with an ethos that centres on attentiveness towards each book they select for publication. They only publish two to three books year out of the multitude of manuscripts they receive, so there’s a lot of care and individual attention afforded to their authors. Having been aware of their work, I submitted my novel to them and after a month or so I heard back from them. They were very excited about the book and decided to buy the film option along with the North American rights. What would you say to a young writer from King Williams Town who hopes to make his mark on the literature landscape? Masande: Read as widely as possible, first for enjoyment, and then as a way to study the form. If you can, make use of the internet to connect to the global literary landscape, do that, and then use that knowledge to turn the focus to where you’re from. What words do you live by as an author? Masande: Read and revise. When all is said and done, what story do you hope your books will tell about you? Masande: That I was once here, and that I tried to detail that we were all once here. The Reactive is available at all leading book stores.