Pat Schwartz reviews ‘In Search of Happiness’ by Sonwabiso Ngcowa.
Sonwabiso Ngcowa’s novel In Search of Happiness, aimed at young adult readers, tells the story of 15-year-old Nana. After growing up in the care of her grandmother in a rural Eastern Cape village, she moves to Cape Town’s bustling Masiphumelele township to join her parents and older sister. Here she encounters a world of prejudice, jealousy and brutality. But she also encounters love – a love she could never have imagined.
Ngcowa writes from some personal experience – he too came from an Eastern Cape village and grew up in Masiphumelele. But that’s where the resemblance between him and his protagonist ends. Ngcowa is a young man who has somehow managed to get under the skin of a teenage girl blooming into early womanhood, who is confused by emotions she does not properly understand.
In this brief, empathetic novel he introduces and deals with many of the themes that trouble South Africans today – among them xenophobia, homophobia and the unimaginable evil of “corrective rape”. There are lessons in it for all of us.
IN SEARCH OF HAPPINESS by Sonwabiso Ngcowa (Face2Face)
via Mail & Guardian
