While it was easy for me to glean what certain sentences were about (mostly thanks to what I’ve picked up through Twitter), other readers might flounder a bit due to the code switching. The liberal use of vernacular may be an issue for an international audience, though. Telling the story of protagonist Marubini, her present as a marketing whiz at a wine farm in Cape Town and the darkness in her past that threatens to swallow her whole, ‘The Yearning’ is quintessentially South African – from the imagery to the essence of the South African people to the language. The narrative constantly jumps from past to present, memory to reality, fact to fiction even, leaving the reader disorientated but utterly unable to put the book down. So much so that I finished the book in 16 hours. Giving just enough away to create suspense and at once thrusting the reader into her world, Mohale Mashigo’s debut novel ‘The Yearning’ starts off with a bang, and continues on a frantic pace. As far as opening lines go, “my mother died seven times before she gave birth to me” is about as good as it gets.
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