Rumours - Mongane Wally Serote

Condition - New

Keke, a veteran MK cadre who was once the CEO of a cellphone company, wakes up one day to find his life in ruins. He has lost his job and his wife, and he has become more and more reliant on the solace of alcohol. After hitting rock bottom, Keke is thrust into a spiritual journey. He meets Ami, a shaman from Mali, and travels there, where he is "cooked" and cleansed in a "meeting" with his ancestors. Only when he is healed, and understands his role in the context of a post-apartheid South Africa, can Keke make a careful comeback to his country to re-join his wife and comrades. The global village, the African continent and South Africa are the platforms where Keke's life unfolds in the 21st century. Dr Serote's writing was inspired by the late Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart. It was through reading this novel that Serote realised that everything he had read before was about things he had not experienced himself. One of the main themes in is that of traditional healing – a theme Serote is very familiar with as he was called by his ancestors to become a traditional healer.

Born in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, Mongane Wally Serote was drawn to poetry and writing towards the end of his high-school career and went on to obtain a fine arts degree in New York at Columbia University in 1979. As a cadre for Umkhonto weSizwe he spent time in Botswana, where he was instrumental in setting up the Medu Arts Ensemble. He is the recipient of the 1993 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, and received the Pablo Neruda Award from the Chilean government in 1994. In 2012, Serote won the prestigious Golden Wreath Award. He joins Léopold Sédar Sengor of Senegal as one of only two recipients to come from the African continent. - Goodreads