Conversation with Kopano Matlwa

Matlwa was only nine years old when Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa. She was part of a new generation, described by Desmond Tutu as the “Rainbow Nation” which, if it did not experience apartheid directly, experienced its consequences in the years that came in its wake. Matlwa and many young people like her grew up with Mandela’s dream of an open, diverse, and democratic society, a vision that has faded as the numbers of cases of political corruption, inequality, and violence keep growing all around the country. In her books Coconut and Florescència (Sembra Llibres and Alpha Decay – in English: Coconut and Period Pain, Jacana Media), Matlwa considers the impossibility of looking to the future without healing wounds that still hurt in the present. What role can literature play in this task? Where is South Africa headed twenty-seven years after abolishing apartheid?

Kopano Matlwa will participate in this conversation by videoconference.