Some of My Best Friends are White: Subversive Thoughts from an Urban Zulu Warrior, by Ndumiso Ngcobo

Some of My Best Friends are White: Subversive Thoughts from an Urban Zulu Warrior, by Ndumiso Ngcobo. ISBN 9781920137182 / ISBN 978-1-92013-718-2

Ndumiso Ngcobo, often named the Herman Charles Bosman of the townships, gives satirical insights of the heart of nowadays South Africa society. Some of My Best Friends are White: Subversive Thoughts from an Urban Zulu Warrior is his first book.

Ndumiso Ngcobo  

"You wont really understand this story unless you are drunk. A god would understand this story, all right. A god putting his hand up to his eyes." That's how Herman Charles Bosman opened his startlingly beautiful short story Heloises Teeth. He could as easily be writing about Ndumiso Ngcobo's collection of think pieces in this book. Though think pieces is a perhaps a misnomer. Its not often that you can think while you're roaring with laughter. We'll call it a paradoxical collection of pieces, then - guaranteed to make you laugh and think at the same time. So, you have to be drunk, or be a god in order to understand and enjoy Ngcobo's pieces. Or just pretend to be either of the two. Ngcobo is P. J. O'Rourke with too much melanin and minus the jingoistic tendencies. His humour is effortless as he peppers you machine-gun style with the home truths of a township raconteur. He takes you by the hand, leads you down a familiar street, and finally gets you seated under a peach tree, with rotting peaches carpeting the floor, their tangy aroma lulling you into deep relaxation. And then he bewitches you with his tales. Just turn to his take on Mbongeni Ngema's AmaNdiya in his piece "That's No Dhal Off My Mutton Breyani, Larney" to see what I mean. Ngcobo has taken humour writing to another level. In the 1990s, with apartheid angst slowly loosening its grip on this nation, and on the imaginations of our writers, we began to see a flowering of new, in-your-face writing that was about nothing and everything - Gus Silber's marvelous Braaivleis Of The Vanities, and Arthur Goldstuck's urban legends and ghost stories, for example. Hilarious stuff that nevertheless got you thinking, delivered in shimmering, streetwise prose. Ngcobo continues this tradition, moving from the ribald to the raucous; from the peripheral to the profound - ballsy writing leavened with insightful humour (if there's such a thing). Some writers get too self conscious when they indulge in what has come to be called political uncorrectese. Not Ngcobo; he tells real-life stories, putting himself in the middle of them and therefore rendering himself a victim of his sharp tongue - self-deprecating analysis at its best. He could be writing about the sense of entitlement among black people or the shifty nature of Indians or the double standards of white English-speaking liberals - deep sociological studies but never taking himself too seriously. There are cringeworthy moments galore. You may read some lines -guffawing as you do - and find yourself unconsciously nodding in agreement and recognition: ah, there goes my boy, tell them the truth! But you wouldn't feel comfortable repeating the truth to the next person because some of his truths are so - eish - painful. Sample this: we Zulus have a well-developed pragmatism. Violence is just the insurance policy we cash in to establish order. As a result we have quite an advanced vocabulary for beating up people... We have a specific word for using the back of the hand to slap someone on the lips. Not just anywhere on the face. You can't bhibiza someone in the eye. And you can't just sommer bhibiza anyone willy-nilly. You bhibiza someone when they are back-chatting you, preferably mid-sentence. Timing is of the essence. You can't, for instance, find someone standing in the street minding their own business and proceed to bhibiza them. That would just be wrong. After all, we're not violent savages. We bhibiza to bring order back into situations. (...)

This is an excerpt from the book: Some of My Best Friends are White: Subversive Thoughts from an Urban Zulu Warrior, by Ndumiso Ngcobo.

Title: Some of My Best Friends are White
Subtitle: Subversive Thoughts from an Urban Zulu Warrior
Author: Ndumiso Ngcobo
Publisher: Struik
Imprint: Two Dogs
Cape Town, South Africa 2007
ISBN 9781920137182 / ISBN 978-1-92013-718-2
Original softcover, 5x21 cm, 192 pages