Dog Eat Dog: A Novel (Modern African Writing Series)
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil,” boasts Dingamanzi Makhedama Njomane, a struggling yet tough-minded first-year university student with a penchant for partying, pop songs, and pretty ladies. Desperate to avoid the “life of the unemployed and unemployable, whose days in the township fold without hope,” Dingz’s approach is practical, and his general attitude fierce. He isn’t above lying or using the race card to survive, because in post-apartheid Soweto, the celebration of democracy is short-lived. Mhlongo describes a searing world that is an “abject pit of red earth,” an underworld of illegal activity and corruption, but one also suffused with music, from crowd-pleasing choruses in Sesotho to the soulful lyrics of Peter Gabriel, and ultimately, hope. Mhlongo’s freshly told novel is the story of a young man determined to never give up trying. --Miriam Tuliao