Listen to Nthikeng Mohlele talking to The Cheeky Natives about his love of writing and music
More about the book!

The Cheeky Natives have released their podcast with Nthikeng Mohlele, to celebrate the publication of his new book Illumination.

The conversation took place last year at Bridge Books in Joburg, and centred around Mohlele’s novel Michael K.

Alma-Nalisha Cele asked Mohlele: ‘Is there a book or books that you think have particularly shaped the way you write? Is there a book that you sit back and you read and you think, I wish I had written that book?’

Mohlele replied that it is music that affects him most strongly.

‘Not necessarily books, strangely, it’s music,’ Mohlele said. ‘And that reference would be Kind of Blue. Miles Davis’s album Kind of Blue.’

Mohlele’s new novel, Illumination, was clearly influenced by Mohlele’s love of music. It focuses on Bantubonke, an accomplished and revered jazz trumpeter, composer and band leader ‘in decline’.

‘I think of literature not in an exclusive manner,’ Mohlele continued. ‘I think of literature as part of artistic disciplines. So they are not mutually exclusive to me. Film, theatre, music and books, for me, including performance poetry and what have you, I see them as part of a cyclical continuum.’