THABA NCHU LITERATURE FORGES AHEAD

By Teboho Masakala

Over the years Thaba Nchu has not been regarded as a place of pulsating literature because there are few, or maybe limited writers to emerge out of it. Places like Bloemfontein have always been given preference over Thaba Nchu as it has many writers.

However, Thaba Nchu has writers that are still yet to be discovered, as there are a lot of poets in Thaba Nchu that can help change the face of literature in our place, with fine authors, and also a poet known as Richard “Skietreker” Seape having published a book called “AFRIKAANS EK GAAN JOU BOKS”. The gentleman who is also a literary activist has given Thaba Nchu writers some foundation to exhibit their work.

On a personal note, with my up-coming collection of short stories to be entitled “MIND, PEN, PAPER AND IDEAS” I also hope to revive the talent of literature that is still hidden in THABA NCHU- interested people can read my short story on wwww.google.com and search for Teboho Masakala.

One of the problems we have in Thaba Nchu is the lack of publishers. If there can at least be one or two publishers to publish our work that would have given us as the writers of Thaba Nchu some platform to start somewhere; and another problem is that publishers are very expensive and it costs a lot of money to publish a single book and that scares and de-motivates our aspiring authors

In the meantime we as writers in Thaba Nchu are very very scarce, only few grassroots people like books and read them, you will find few people reading novels while others are reading academic books just only to pass and after that they throw them away. I have taken it up on myself as a young author to make sure that Thaba Nchu is one of the places to be considered when coming to literature and to see to it that we have more writers and poets to be proud of.

Well known and internationally acclaimed writer Ntate Bolaji is one of the established and well known authors who have always encouraged writers to excel and to love writing. Thaba Nchu needs to be a reading place; we need to start our own book clubs to showcase our talent to the rest of Mangaung and Free State as a whole. We have very good poets; one of them is Doraldo poet who is well known as Abel.

I think that it is time Thaba Nchu authors got out of hiding and joined me to make sure that we make our place a well known place when coming to literature with its Authors known - another problem is our authors might not have pride in their place, many are even shy to say that they come from Thaba Nchu!

Thus far I have only released two short stories with a Bloemfontein local newspaper called Free State news and the literary world was happy about me and that made me feel proud about Thaba Nchu, my place where I garnered my writing foundation, I am not even shy to say that I come from this place, I love literature and hope to be a great author like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, O Bolaji, Zakes Mda etc

It is time we got together to make sure that there is a rise in Thaba Nchu literature, aluta continua, the struggle to make Thaba Nchu literature a success continues…
Email me for your comment on www.tebohomasakala@yahoo.com

Teboho Masakala is a very young man who loves literature and avows that he wants to change the face of literature in Thaba Nchu His short stories can be read on the internet