Masande Ntshanga chatted to Ayanda-Allie Paine on ENCA Weekend Wakeup about his award-winning book The Reactive recently.

The Reactive is a poignant, life-affirming story about secrets, memory, chemical abuse and family, and the redemption that comes from facing what haunts us most.

Click on the link for more about the book!

Author Imraan Coovadia said of the novel: ‘In sentences which swing like nobody else’s in the country, Masande Ntshanga sets out on a thrilling new expedition of writerly daring in The Reactive.’

Ntshanga says he was ‘quite pleased’ to receive that endorsement, adding that use of language in the book was ‘something I worked really hard at’.

‘I’ve always had a relationship with language in which I was very aware of its affects,’ he says, ‘and the last things that I wanted to do in this book was allow it to fall into cliché, in such a way that if I was using received language it would distract the reader and not make the experience as immersive as I wanted it to be.

‘So I had to be very careful about how I used the language in the book and also be very deliberate in creating Lindanathi the main character’s voice.’

Watch the video:

Categories Fiction South Africa

Tags ENCA Masande Ntshanga Penguin Random House SA The Reactive Umuzi