Honours linguistics student at UWC Thaakierah Jefferies has penned her first book about Cape Flats life and the challenges of the pandemic in a world turned upside down.
Titled 2020: Need I say more?, the fictional novel is packed with humour, a touch of love and even some drama.
Jefferies said: “It was always a dream of mine to be a writer. From a young age, I started writing children’s stories – the kind of stories I would have liked to read as a child.”
She added: “I wanted to tell the stories others were afraid to tell and to create humour and entertainment with my words.”
The book explores the challenging year in the life of students at the “University of Furthering Development” along with their friends and family.
Jefferies said she wrote the book trying to include love, drama, criminal conspiracies and online lectures, to answer the question, “What do we do when the world goes mad and nothing makes sense any more?”
“My main motivation for wanting to be an author is to write the stories that will put a smile on a reader’s face, and let them know that hope is something that we should all have,” she said.
She added: “2020 was probably the most challenging year ever and here we are, still fighting, still living and still hoping.”
Throughout lockdown, she spent time penning the book and finishing her undergraduate studies in linguistics. While doing so, she tutored and coached young athletes, remained fit and started working as a copywriter and still found time to finish her book.
“I write as if it is a job. I slot it into my timetable as part of one of the things I need to do for the day – and then I do my best to just do it,” she said.
The Honours linguistics student said she would like to open an unconventional school in future.
“I want it to be a school that stimulates children with different interests. We cannot expect a fish to climb a tree, so why not try a new schooling system that opens the minds and keeps learners stimulated in the fields that they flourish in?”
Jefferies is already working on the sequel to 2020: Need I say more? and said she has many more stories to tell.
“What I love most about writing is the way in which written text can create a world of images in the writer’s head as well as the reader – and those images can help inspire and connect us,” she said.
She added: “That’s really the message of the book: we should all be connecting to each other with our hearts – and our differences should empower us, not divide us.”