Meshack Masondo: Crime writer
1961-2013
MESHACK Masondo, who wrote crime novels in Zulu, died as violently as any one of his characters. He was murdered outside his home in Alberton on the East Rand.
Masondo wrote his first book in 1993 and within seven years was earning enough in royalties to buy himself a cattle farm between Dundee and Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal, where all his books are set.
He was a highly successful crime writer and published 11 novels that sold 400 000 copies.
Two years ago, he bought some taxis and became chairman of the Vaal Taxi Association. He was caught up in the violence that characterises the industry and there was a pending court case in which he was due to have testified.
He was at home one evening when he was called outside by a taxi driver and gunned down when he got to his front gate.
Ironically, his last two novels dealt with drugs and violence and conflict between taxi owners in the industry.
Masondo was born on July 10 1961 in the small rural village of Nqutu in KwaZulu-Natal.
He went to high school in Umlazi, Durban, at Swelihle Senior Secondary.
He completed a BA in English and Zulu at the University of South Africa, a BA honours degree in Zulu at the University of Pretoria, a BA honours degree
He was called outside and gunned down when he got to his front gate
in English at Vista University in Soweto and an MA in African languages at the University of Cape Town.
His dissertation was the detective novel in Zulu.
He began his working career as a sales representative for Shuter and Shooter publishers in the 1980s.
He became a publishing manager at Pan Macmillan Publishers in Johannesburg in 2002 and worked there until 2011.
When he first began writing, he was suspected of simply translating English detective stories into Zulu.
He laughed off the accusations. He said that he was “just a home boy from Nqutu” who could barely express himself in English, let alone translate it into Zulu.
Besides, he said, cultural differences made it almost impossible to translate English crime fiction into Zulu, whose readers would find it incomprehensible.
A number of his novels have been prescribed for schools throughout South Africa. He had won several awards, including the Magema Fuze Lectio Folklore Award, the NN Ndebele Heinemann Drama Award for a book of plays, and the Nasionale Boekhandel Award of African Language Literature.
In spite of his own success, his advice to would-be novelists was to not do it for the money. Do it for the sheer love of writing or not at all, he said.
He is survived by his wife, Francisca, and four sons. — Chris Barron