Tuelo Gabonewe

Tuelo Gabonewe is a novelist who writes in two languages, Setswana and English. He announced himself on the writing scene when he released Planet Savage, his novel that was published by Jacana Media in 2011. Planet Savage was followed by another novel titled Sarcophagus, published by Gecko Publishers. He also wrote a storybook for little children titled Hippo and his Friends. Dinotshi is his third novel. Tuelo completed his studies in Psychology and Public Management & Administration at the North West University in 2005, and later obtained his masters in Creative Writing from Wits University in 2016. When he’s not busy writing books, he works full-time as a bank employee.

Publications

DINOTSHI

Dinotshi is an erotic novella written in Setswana, the first of its no-punches-pulled kind. The lead is female and in her late 20s. On the surface, our vixen appears to be a coitus-crazed cougar whose actions are driven purely by her marital unhappiness. Peel away the top layer and you find out that our first lady is just a girl being a human being like all of us, enjoying what little carnal pleasures there are to be enjoyed before she checks out. There’s a lot of men in this novella, as there usually is in works of fiction. It’s Miss Baddie, however, who runs the show. The decision to go with a female lead was a deliberate one. Setswana as a language is steeped, as most languages are, in patriarchy. The word for woman in Setswana is mosadi. Mosadi means remainer, or the one who stays behind. You’re welcome to draw your own conclusions as to how that word came to be. Embracing one’s sexuality is still taboo in Africa, a continent, ironically enough, with over 1 billion people and with a headcount that’s always on the rise. Our beautiful, bubbly, body count bossing babe, with the help of her similarly oversexed partners in slime, is here to shake the table.

You can get copies of Dinotshi here.

TSHIKA FA E YA BANENG

Nana and her two children are left to fend themselves, when the family’s breadwinner dies suddenly at work. Despised and unloved by a community far-flung from everything Nana – somewhat frail and too old for her years – takes one final, drastic and fatal step to protect what remains of her family.

You can get copies of Tshika Fa E Ya Baneng here.