The Way I See It. The Musings of a Black Woman in the Rainbow Nation, by Lerato Tshabalala

The Way I See It. The Musings of a Black Woman in the Rainbow Nation by Lerato Tshabalala. Penguin Random House South Africa. Imprint: Penguin Books. Cape Town, South Africa 2017. ISBN 9781776090150 / ISBN 978-1-77-609015-0

The Way I See It. The Musings of a Black Woman in the Rainbow Nation by Lerato Tshabalala, who is 36, very single and lives in Johannesburg.

Preface

In 2011, while chatting to my friend and boss at the time, Nadine Dreyer, during our weekly planning meeting for Sunday Times Lifestyle, she suggested I write a column. About what, I asked. Everything, she said. Now those of you who know me, know how much shit I've got swirling in my head at any given moment. Oh, allow me to digress for a second ... (Better get used to me digressing, because it's going to happen a lot in this book.) I'm going to curse / swear in this book. Let's just get that out of the way now. That is, I'm going to be using quite a few swear words. Don't worry, it won't be like listening to a Snoop Dogg record. I won't be gratuitous with my profanity, but since this is my book, I'm going to write it the way I speak. And sometimes I swear (okay, I'm being economical with the truth here: I swear a lot), so it's best to gird your loins before I start the engine. Okay? Excellent! Okay, back to my illuminating and necessary Preface, So ja, I've always got a lot of things going on in my head. Some are inspired, some are kak, but mostly they're random. At the time, I didn't know what was fit to share with the public, so naturally I wrote about everything. From ablutions to travelling, no subject was too elementary for me to tackle. When the gods were singing, my columns were inspired, but, at other times, they went down like a plane wreck. But without Nadine forcing me to write about whatever random stream of consciousness had entered my already littered mind, we wouldn't be here today. Here, with you, reading my book. That I wrote! Yes, me. Through that column, I learnt a lot about myself. The more people loved the column, the more friends I lost (besides also hurting some of my former lovers), because I would write about them. But I also discovered that South Africans have a great sense of humour. Without that 'Urban Miss' column, my publisher wouldn't have called me and asked if I had ever thought about writing a book. The answer was no, I hadn't, but since I was in her office and my ego was being stroked, I started flirting with the idea. I didn't necessarily have visions of myself commanding an enthused audience at the Franschhoek Literary Festival - I'm not an author, after all (that would be an insult to Lauren Beukes and Margie Orford); I'm a writer who has written The Way I See It, The Musings of a Black Woman in the Rainbow Nation - but I knew I could write a book every South African could relate to. I didn't want this book to be just about me - because if it was, all you'd be reading about are my failed relationships and my lifelong battle with my thunder thighs. I wanted to use myself and my life as a mirror to our society. That was the motivation for this book - less navel-gazing, more outward facing. I've been lucky enough to travel to some awesome countries in the world, and I can tell you there's no place like South Africa. [...]

This is an excerpt from The Way I See It. The Musings of a Black Woman in the Rainbow Nation, by Lerato Tshabalala.

Title: The Way I See It
Subtitle: The Musings of a Black Woman in the Rainbow Nation
Author:  Lerato Tshabalala
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Imprint: Penguin Books
Cape Town, South Africa 2017
ISBN 9781776090150 / ISBN 978-1-77-609015-0
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 212 pages