My review cannot begin to cover the complexity of this novel’s six-hundred pages. For giving me real people with real issues living in this real unforgiving world. For Sello's ability to delve deep into the recesses of his emotions and bring them out untarnished.
I gave it 5 phat starts for the beautiful writing. I think that he set the tone for Nthikeng Mohlele's "Pleasure", Ekow Duker's "The God Who Made Mistakes" and Nakhane Toure's "Piggy Boy's Blues". Sello penned this enthralling narrative with so much depth of emotion. You'd think that, us, the children of post 1976, would treat our fellow human beings with compassion, understanding, acceptance and brotherly-love because WE know how it feels to be marginalized and discriminated against. Just read through a few of Koleka Putuma's poetry collection, "Collective Amnesia" and see the violence with which our children, brothers and sisters are treated. And then, I Iook back to the timelines, how receptive were SAfricans of the LGBT community then? Have we made any inroads in that regards? All I know is, we are still persecuting them for not fitting into our neatly labelled and lined boxes. I sometimes felt like slapping him, Tshepo, other times, I just wanted to fold him in a hearty embrace and say, "Don't be afraid, do you". This very dramatic story of Tshepo AKA Angelo was such an emotional rollercoaster. lifestyle and set of experiences are explored - that of a young black woman who gets involved with a disabled German student who does not want to commit to marriage, despite Mmabatho's unplanned pregnancy. The novel explores Tshepo-Angelo's coming to consciousness of his sexuality, sexual orientation, and place in the world. Desperate for an income, he finds work at a male massage parlour, using the pseudonym Angelo. The relationship with his flatmate deteriorates and Tshepo loses his job at the Waterfront. He now works as a waiter and shares an apartment with a newly released prisoner. He escapes but is returned to the hospital and completes his rehabilitation, earns his release - and promptly terminates his studies. The plot revolves around Tshepo, a student at Rhodes, who gets confined to a Cape Town mental institution after an episode of 'cannabis-induced psychosis'. The Quiet Violence of Dreams is set in Cape Town's cosmopolitan neighbourhoods - Observatory, Mowbray and Sea Point - where subcultures thrive and alternative lifestyles are tolerated.
In doing so, he ventures into unexplored areas and takes local writing in English to places it hasn't been before. In this daring novel, the author gives a startling account of the inner workings of contemporary South African urban culture.
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