“I’ve never celebrated nor embraced negativity in my life. Every single thing I have tried to do or written has come out of a need to actually eradicate or wipe out whatever it is that seeks to destroy the soul of other people. I respect the WORD. People talk about wordplay, I don’t play with it. It’s one of the most powerful weapons in the world.” Lesego Rampolokeng is well known in South Africa and internationally for his confrontational performance poetry. Whiteheart – his first prose work – is a nightmarish plunge into a 1970s Soweto childhood where violence waits everywhere to make its nest in the child-narrator’s mind.
An edition of Whiteheart: Prologue to Hysteria is available in print at the Chimurenga Factory (157 Victoria Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town) or from our online store.
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