Cape Town - When Philani Dladla says a book changed his life he is not exaggerating.
His story began on his 12th birthday when his mother’s employer gave him the book, The Last White Parliament, by political analyst Frederik van Zyl Slabbert.
Attending a rural school in Port Shepstone, KwaZulu-Natal at the time, his English was almost non-existent but that didn’t stop him.
“I couldn’t understand what the book was all about as it was a political book. I read it slowly, several times until I finished it. He (his mother’s employer) told me that it was a special book and I wanted to find out what was so special about it.
“He also promised to buy me more books if I finished it and was able to tell him what it was about. Because I couldn’t read or speak English it was a challenge, but I did it because I wanted to impress him,” says Dladla.
“He was an old man and shortly after he gave me the book he passed away. In his will he left me 500 collectible books that included Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and many by William Shakespeare. I started reading and I couldn’t stop. I spent most of my time indoors with my books, they were my best friends.”
In high school, the adolescent Dladla became friends with the wrong crowd who introduced him to drinking and unruly behaviour.
“I wasn’t the nerd that was bullied anymore, I became the bully and one of the ‘cool guys’. I started drinking, smoking, bunking class and was involved in all sorts of trouble which got me expelled,” he says.
Watching his peers progress in life while his stood still pushed him into a dark space, and he tried to end his life many times. On his mother’s insistence he moved to Joburg in 2008 to start a new life, and his collection of books went with him.
Things started off well. Dladla got a job as a health care worker looking after the elderly and moved into his own apartment.
He says life in the big city was fast-paced, fun and exciting, but it was also filled with all sorts of bad temptations.
“I started experimenting with drugs. I did the good stuff first, such as cocaine, but soon ran out of money. After that I didn’t care what I took, I just wanted to get high. I would take anything I could find from heroin to nyaope.”
After losing his job and being kicked out of his apartment, Dladla found himself living on the streets under the Nelson Mandela Bridge, a place he would call home for several years.
To fund his addiction, Dladla would stand at Joburg’s Empire Road near the University of the Witwatersrand, with his books in hand, selling book reviews to motorists and passers-by.
Word about this spread quickly and soon people came in numbers to see the man now dubbed The Pavement Bookworm.
“I decided to sell reviews instead of the books because I wanted to keep my inheritance. People paid between R20 to R100 for a review depending on how impressed they were with it.
“Some asked me to recommend books they should read and if the books were as good as I said they would pay me for it (the recommendation).
“I did that for about two years and would use all the money to get high... there was nothing else I could think about. I lived under the bridge with other drug addicts, everyone had their hustle. Some collected rubbish while others begged for money on the streets. Mine was books.
“No one worried about or stole my books, we respected each other in that way,” says Dladla.
Then writer and documentary filmmaker Tebogo Malope interviewed him about his mobile bookshop and posted the video online. It went viral. (Scroll to the end of the story to see the video)
“People loved the video. When he shot it I didn’t have a clue what he was going to do with it. People came from all over South Africa, including the media, to interview me. I figured it was time to get clean and to do something productive with the money I was getting.
“I started a Book Reader’s Club for underprivileged children at Joubert Park where I teach children, after school, how to read.
“It’s a way of thanking books for saving my life... I could have ended up dead on the streets,” says Dladla.
Now he has written his own book, The Pavement Bookworm, about his inspiring story – from his love of books, to his addiction and how he changed his life. The book was launched by publisher Jacana Media at the Table Bay Hotel on February 26.
“When I was on the streets I documented everything in a journal and I had a wish that some day I could publish my story to help people to quit drugs. Soon, hopefully, there will be a movie,” says Dladla.
”I went from sleeping under a bridge to this. I hope my book inspires people, lets them know that anything is possible.”
Visit pavementbookworm.co.za for more information on Dladla’s ongoing work and projects.
Cape Argus