Dudu Busani Dube – remember that name. This 34-year-old print journalist by day and author by night is tapping into a market that has little to no mainstream attention in South Africa. But she is proving to be a huge success.
Born and bred in the streets of KwaMashu, Dube has made her mark with the Hlomu series – three books that appeal to the average female black reader from the townships of South Africa.
I attended the launch of her novels at the People’s Park Restaurant in Durban recently and was blown away by the sheer number of women who devour her stories and the robust dialogue these books encourage. From 18-year-old trendsetters to fifty-somethings, the venue was filled to capacity – I’ve never seen such huge support for an up-and-coming author as I did that Saturday.
Dube’s foray into publishing is unconventional and gutsy. If anything, you have to admire her for that.
It all began when a court and hard news reporter who was covering some of the most heinous events in South Africa, needed an outlet to explore her creative side.
“I always knew I would write a book at some point in my life, I just didn’t know when,” says Dube.
She wanted to write something that could be read by anyone, but also wanted her readers to be able to find a bit of themselves in the story she told. She started a blog and in May last year began writing a tale – largely imagined, but also reflective of the life, love and struggles of the people she grew up among.
A Facebook page that offered followers snippets from the blog soon had a handful of women enthralled and glued to their screens, waiting for the next instalment in the Hlomu story to go up on her blog. At last count that Facebook page had about 2 600 likes – a phenomenal achievement.
A fan at the launch said: “Every day I found myself checking my Facebook page four to 10 times a day – waiting for the next part.
“I was addicted to your blog. And I couldn’t wait to read what was going to happen next.”
After completing Hlomu: The Wife, Dube went on to write two other books on her blog – Zandile: The Resolute and Naledi: His Love.
I’ve read the first book, and can understand its popularity. A fan summed it up to Dube: “Before we had your books we only had the gossip columns or American and UK fiction that we didn’t completely identify with. Your books are great – they are our stories. They are about ordinary people that could be us or our neighbours.”
Hlomu: The Wife is essentially a love story that takes its cues from life in a South African township.
A young woman named Mahlomu meets Mqhele Zulu and they fall in love. Even though aspects of Mqhele’s personality and past make her uncomfortable, Hlomu is happy.
Their love is strong and they stand by each other through good and bad.
But Mqhele and his seven brothers have a dark and tumultuous past that involves a dead warlord father, mob justice, and lots of unaccounted-for money.
The Zulu brothers are rich, handsome, powerful and… dangerous.
They eventually become one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Johannesburg – but the inherent danger remains.
Zandile: The Resolute and Naledi: His Love are Dube’s next two novels and they are also about different women who marry into the Zulu family.
All three novels were written online from last year. This year, Dube decided to take the next step and publish the books. Opting to go it alone, she self-published and has marketed and sold her books almost entirely on a whim and fancy.
With the help of a few loyal friends she’s often just filled a car boot with books and headed off to a spot where she thought she would be able to sell them to whomever was interested. No agent, no publisher and no bookseller – Dube has pretty much done it on her own. The jaw-dropping fact is despite this, she has sold over 3 000 copies in a matter of months.
It’s interesting that Dube opted to go it alone. She attributes her choice to wanting “the books to come out the way I wanted”.
“My style of writing is very raw and there are no rules governing how I use words. If a character is angry she’ll say ‘ghra!’ or ‘nx!’ or whatever comes to mind. I also throw in a bit of vernacular here and there. I didn’t want to lose that vibe.”
I understand what she was aiming for. However, a reader at the launch made an astute observation about quality. Writing online is very different from writing a paperback novel. Readers in each medium have different needs and expectations.
Certainly, reading a book comes with the expectation that it has been carefully edited.
I cannot help but agree that Hlomu could have benefited from a good editor going through the copy before it was turned into a paperback. There is nothing more annoying than spelling, and grammatical errors, let alone poor punctuation.
In spite of this, there is no doubt there is a hunger for novels like Hlomu. And it’s possibly for this reason readers forgive the inherent errors. It was the same reader who criticised the editing of the novels who also said she did not go to bed until she had actually finished the novel… and she had read the first one at least six times.
“There is a perception that South Africans don’t read, especially young and middle-aged women,” says Dube, who is talking about women from the townships in particular.
“I disagree. We don’t read because nobody is writing stories that we can relate to.
“I wanted to write something where readers could easily see themselves, their dysfunctional families, friends, enemies in the characters.”
So she’s set her novels in real places and kept the language simple and accessible. “I throw in a bit of current affairs and make some of the characters very typical.
“For instance, Hlomu’s mother is obsessed with Tupperware, her aunt drinks Savanna cider, and her cousin is a dodgy township celebrity (everybody has that cousin).”
On what inspires her to write (she’s currently working on the fourth and final instalment in the Hlomu series), Dube cites “the sisterhood that the Hlomu series of books have created”.
“I have met people I never would have met if I hadn’t decided to write,” she says.
Speaking to this confident woman, who accepts criticism with grace and applause with humility, I was inspired and hopeful. In a world where books and reading are fast losing value, Dube has carved a niche for herself.
She’s embraced technology – using it to tell her stories. She’s reached a massive group of women that is largely ignored by South African authors. She’s defied convention. And she’s been pretty successful thus far.