So Nozizwe Cynthia Jele is releasing her second book titled The Ones with Purpose, which will be coming out on 20 April 2018. Yey!! Only a few days to go!
It’s been about 8 years since Happiness is a Four-Letter Word was released and boy it’s been a long wait but it wasn’t so bad as we got to see the Happiness movie as well in between the waiting. Which was a box office success making over 10 million! Happiness is a Four-Letter Word is her debut novel and won the Best First Book category (Africa region) in the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize in 2011, as well as the 2011 M-Net Literary Award in the Film category.
So I was excited to read the interview that Nozizwe had with The Johannesburg Review Editor, Jennifer Malec on the latest issue of The Johannesburg Review of Books. Nozizwe says that her main objective with The Ones with Purpose, is to continue to build a bigger reader base for fiction in this country and beyond. The book is based on how a family deals with a terminal illness of a loved one. The book began with an HIV theme but Nozizwe changed it to cancer following the death of her aunt about two years ago. This change was “because very little is said, let alone written, about this disease in the black community.” Her family hasn’t spoken about her aunt’s death.
Read an exclusive excerpt of The Ones with Purpose as shared by The Johannesburg Review of Books here.
The Ones with Purpose (Kwela Books), available 20 April 2018 at a bookstore near you and on eBook.
