Masande Ntshanga

“The violent and fascinating history of South Africa—from colonialism to apartheid, and the recent struggles to come to terms with this past—serves as a rich backdrop for this unsettling, enrapturing novel that brings to mind Roberto Bolano’s 2666.”

— Alexander Moran, Booklist

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About

Masande Ntshanga is the author of the novels The Reactive and Triangulum, and the chapbook Native Life in the Third Millennium. He is the winner of the Betty Trask Award and the inaugural PEN International New Voices Award, and a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing. His work has appeared in The White Review, Chimurenga, VICE, the LA Review of Books, n+1, MIT Technology Review, and Rolling Stone.

Born in East London, South Africa, he grew up in Mdantsane, Bhisho and King William's Town. He graduated from the University of Cape Town with degrees in Film & Media and English Studies, and completed his MA in Creative Writing under the Mellon Mays Foundation. He has received a Fulbright Award, a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, and a Bundanon Trust Award.

He is the founder of Model See Media, an experimental press, and served as the first Black editor of the literary journal New Contrast since its founding in 1960.

Books

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The Reactive

Jacaranda Books, 2017 · Novel · Betty Trask Award Winner

An HIV-positive young man grapples with the death of his brother while drifting through early-2000s Cape Town, selling antiretroviral drugs on the black market with friends. A portrait of a generation navigating the aftermath of apartheid and the government's denial of the AIDS crisis.

"From time to time a novel comes along that is so strange, yet so utterly fresh and compelling, that it feels tuned into a reality with which you are not yet familiar."

— Eckard Smuts, Aerodrome

"Masande Ntshanga is a wildly talented writer. Get in on his brilliance now so you can claim you always knew he'd be great."

— Victor LaValle

"Ntshanga renders the world of his characters with sharp, clear-eyed prose, capturing the ennui and drift of post-apartheid youth with startling precision."

— Bongani Kona, Chimurenga Chronic

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Triangulum

Two Dollar Radio, 2019 · Novel · Nommo Award Shortlist

A schoolgirl maths prodigy in the Eastern Cape is haunted by her mother's disappearance and mysterious visions of “the machine.” Part coming-of-age, part science fiction, the novel bridges South Africa's apartheid past and a dystopian near-future surveillance state. Optioned for television by SK Global Entertainment.

"A novel of incredible imagination that gradually unfurls into a wonderfully realized meditation on growing up, heritage, and the effects of technological progress."

— Alexander Moran, Booklist

"Magnificently disorienting and meticulously constructed, Triangulum couples an urgent subtext with an unceasing sense of mystery."

— Tobias Carroll, Tor.com

"Masande Ntshanga's poetic language haunts... Ntshanga has crafted a novel that triangulates South Africa's past, present, and future, using each to better surmise the nature of the others."

— Rachel Z. Arndt, The Believer

Native Life in the Third Millennium cover

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Native Life in the Third Millennium

Model See Media, 2020 · Poetry & Prose

An interlinking chapbook in which a philosopher, poet, and programmer reflect on existence in millennial Africa — weaving through addiction, mental illness, assimilation, and the freight of colonial history.

"Ntshanga's work is difficult to contain and is often a dance of binaries inching us closer towards the frigid and boundless voids of the human condition."

— Nkgopoleng Moloi, Bubblegum Club

"Ntshanga's swirling prose poses philosophical questions about what it means to be alive, the different mechanisms we use to keep the heaviness of being at a remove."

— Rofhiwa Maneta, OkayAfrica

"Ntshanga's prose is densely written, often poetic, every sentence hammered until it fits."

— Willem Anker, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde