An author from Mount Frere, Abongile Ngqoleka has been nominated as one of the best writers at the 4th annual Mzantsi Arts and Media Awards. MAMA is an organization that prides itself on promoting and uplifting local artists and helping them with achieving their goals.
Growing up, Abongile became friends with a pen as a way of helping him deal with childhood traumas caused by life tragedies, and as a result, he found himself working on his first offering titled Nakhane.
“After many years of seeking solace and closure over my sister’s death who was raped and killed by her boyfriend then, I decided to just let the voices in my head out and produce my first offering as a self-published author titled NAKHANE dedicated to my late sister,” he explains. He adds that Nakhane is mainly about Gender-Based Violence, Rape, The killing of people living with albinism, Homophobia the dislike or prejudice against the LGBT community, life of an orphan, Teenage pregnancy, HIV and Aids, Absent Fathers, Depression, Street kids, gender inequalities and being raised by a single parent, and it’s all covered one book.
“My journey writing this book and working on this project has been one of the hardest ones because it’s my first project and on top of that, I worked on it as an unsigned author and I had no funding for this project. I had to use my Nsfas funds to inject this project however it has been a very productive one because I managed to study the writing industry through this book, every step of the publishing process, from writing, marketing, promoting, producing the book parts and registering my work,” he says.
“Being nominated for the Best Writer in the national awards means a lot to me, I honestly can’t describe the feeling, such things are hard to achieve when you’re doing everything on your own, with no sponsorship and no agent representing you, it’s just you alone pushing and judging from where the book was written from, the person who wrote it and difficulties I faced in the process of writing it, this award nomination means a lot to me, and it would mean even more if I could manage to bring it back to Eastern Cape; hence I am calling for everyone to come through for me because this award isn’t only for me but for Eastern Cape as a whole and every black child coming from humble beginnings yet out there trying to make things happen for themselves.”
Winning this award would be a life-changing moment for him and his family, because of what they went through after losing their family member in the way she died and not receiving any justice. Winning this award would be adding to the legacies he is trying to build.
” I mean even after I’m gone, my sister’s kids will see how I endeavored to honor their mother, and my family will see how I endeavored to heal their hearts through this, at the end of the day, the book wasn’t for me but for every victim of GBV and the other mentioned above components of the book, therefore, this award would mean more than the world to me,” he concludes.
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To reach me, people can contact me here
0786682680
0713303734
On Facebook, I am Abongile Nakhane Ngqoleka.
proud and inspired qhubek’uqhakazis’idolophu yethu mfondini