Young author hopes to inspire African youth

Lindiwe Sweleka may be on her path to becoming a distinguished author but she will always remember her roots growing up in Matatiela-Ha-Masopha, the rural Eastern Cape.

She recently published her new book with the hope of reforming South African youth to becoming more intelligent and motivate them to be better versions of themselves.

Lindiwe worked as human resource officer and completed her studies at Unisa. However, African literature has always been her true love. Lindiwe’s body of work in her books mainly focuses on themes of youth, African culture as well as adding her voice in advising young people to grab life by its horns. Her first book, Mpontsheng tsela ya lerato is inspired by her upbringing as the protagonist in the story is a young man who comes from the rural outskirts of the setting in the book, however, has a different experience of being in the city away from the traditional rural village.

The purpose of this book is to speak to young people and encourage them to never be hesitant to take risks,” said Lindiwe.

Her newest book, which was published in April this year and is primarily focused on children, Nakhane le popi ya hae was inspired by her youngest niece. The book is a guidance book that teaches children manners and hygiene. The reason she wrote the book was because she saw a gap in the author space in that it is rare to find a book that is written in an African language.

“I want to create a new platform for young African writers and elevate their voices because I recognise the importance of literature.”

Lindiwe may have only two books on her resumé but she’s made her mark in many author spaces on her journey and has bigger fish to catch.

Lindiwe has been featured at some prominent book fairs, such as Library Week and Joburg Book Fair. The Joburg Book Fair’s aim is to create readers and writers in all South Africa’s languages, to promote the mother tongue and to use all art forms to encourage people of all ages to read the word and the world and to exercise their social agency.

Lindiwe’s plan is to launch a programme targeting youth in mainly rural areas in South Africa in hope of creating a golden generation of African authors.