Such a Lonely, Lovely Road

Winner of the Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award for Excellence in African Writing, 2019

Coming out in South Africa … At what cost?

All his life Kabelo Mosala has been the perfect child to his doting absent parents, who show him off every chance they get. Both his parents and his small community look forward to him coming back after medical school and joining his father’s practice. They also plan to give him the perfect township wedding. But Kabelo’s one wish has always been to get as far away from the township as he possibly can and never come back. A few weeks before he leaves for university, however, he forms a close bond with Sediba, one of his childhood friends, confirming his long-held suspicion that he is gay. Their relationship is thrown into turmoil by social pressures and conflicting desires, and it starts to look as if they can’t be together. But against all odds the two young men make their way back to each other, risking scorn from the community that raised them.

In her characteristic, beautifully modulated voice, with razor-sharp clarity, Kagiso Lesego Molope tackles an urgent issue in her country of birth.

AUTHOR

Kagiso Lesego Molope

Kagiso Lesego Molope was born and educated in South Africa. Her first novel, Dancing in the Dust (Mawenzi House) was on the IBBY Honour List for 2006. Her second novel, The Mending Season, was chosen to be on the school curriculum in South Africa. This Book Betrays My Brother was awarded the Percy Fitzpatrick Prize by the English Academy of Southern Africa, where it was first published. Her latest novel, Such a Lonely, Lovely Road, was released in 2018. She lives in Ottawa.

Reviews

“At a moment in which representation has become an important linchpin of literary conversation, Molope’s tale tackles themes of racism, sexuality, and otherness without resorting to flat characterization, obvious plotting, or didactic moralism. A powerful novel, Such a Lonely, Lovely Road is evocative and absorbing.” —Quill & Quire

“[Such a Lonely, Lovely Road] is great at capturing how the forces of family and communal expectations converge agonizingly in the heart of an outwardly successful and unimpeachable youth.” —Canadian Literature

“In Such a Lonely, Lovely Road, Kagiso Lesego Molope tells a beautiful love story electrified by resistance to societal expectations, laced with defiance and shame and nuanced within a context of poverty, societal inequality and racial privilege.” —Herizons

“…a powerful and inspirational story of longing and pursuing love despite social stigmas.” —World Literature Today, Nota Bene

“Such a Lonely, Lovely Road is at once fascinating and unforgettable. Set in the new South Africa slowly recovering from decades of apartheid, it tells the complex story of Kabelo and Sediba, two men finding love and navigating the difficult terrain of race, homophobia in the black community and family ties. Molope writes a riveting tale of finding self and finding love in this gripping story of men in love in post-independence South Africa.” –Jude Dibia, author of Blackbird