Season 4: Episode 40: Niq Mhlongo

Secrets from the Green Room

Irma and Karen chat about the highs and lows of podcasting.
Then Irma talks to Niq Mhlongo about what it was like growing up in Soweto, South Africa, how sleeping in a tiny room with seven brothers got him hooked on reading, why he ditched law to become a writer, how Dan Brown made him think he’d become a millionaire from writing, how his debut novel went from being deemed ‘unpublishable’ to being accepted by the same publisher, why he is sceptical about literary prizes, why living from Berlin gives him freedom to write about Soweto, and why writing in English gives him another kind of freedom.
About Niq
Niq Mhlongo is the Sowetan-born author of four novels and three collections of
short stories. He is also the editor of a collection of essays called Black Tax:
Burden or Ubuntu, and two short fiction anthologies. His debut novel, Dog Eat
Dog, won the Spanish Literary Award, and his collection of short stories, Soweto
Under The Apricot Tree won the Herman Charles Bosman Literary Prize and the
Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award. He currently lives in Berlin.