BOOK REVIEW

NAKHANE is not only an award winning artist but also a great storyteller. Their debut novel, Piggy Boy’s Blues, according to Blackbird books, is for all intents and purposes a portrait of the M. family.

Centred mostly on the protagonist, Davide M., and his return to Alice the town of his birth, the novel portrays a Xhosa royal family past its prime and glory. Davide’s journey, from the city to pastoral Alice for peace and quiet, is not what he or the characters living in the forgotten and dilapidated house have bargained for.

His return disturbs and troubles the silence and day-to-day practices that his uncle, Ndimphiwe and the man he lives with have kept, resulting in a series of tragic events.

LOVE

Set mostly in the Eastern Cape (modern and historical) - in Alice and Port Elizabeth, Piggy Boy’s Blues is a novel about boundaries, the intricacies of love and how the members of the M. family sometimes fail at navigating them.

One thing worth noting with this story is the author’s ability to raise contemporary and relevant issues without spelling them out and naming them one by one. Abandonment, history, you name it. Also the fact that nothing is put in the open, everything is implied makes the book a whole new experience all together. A page turner of note.

Nakhane Touré is a multimedia artist born in a small town in the Eastern Cape called Alice. He was raised predominantly in Port Elizabeth and is now based in Johannesburg.

After beginning his studies in literature at the University of Witwatersrand, he embarked on a music career, resulting in an album – Brave Confusion – which went on to win a South African Music Award for Best Alternative Album.