Award-winning novelist Masande Ntshanga is currently in the United States for the launch of the North American-edition of his explosive debut novel, The Reactive.
The tour, organised by Ntshanga’s US-publisher Columbus independent press Two Dollar Radio, started on Saturday, 17 September, in Brooklyn, New York, and ends in San Francisco on Wednesday, 12 October.
On Thursday, 29 September, the author will be in conversation with Toni Nealie, author of The Miles Between Me, at Curbside Books & Records in Chicago.
Last night, Ntshanga gave a reading from his book at the Village Theatre in Davenport and shared a few pictures of the event on Twitter:
Moeller Nights was great. S/O to @birdtalkermusic and @Rae_Fitzgerald. pic.twitter.com/1kHbF775vs
— Masande Ntshanga (@mntshanga) September 27, 2016
Ntshanga has been a busy man. Earlier this week, he could be seen signing books at The Pygmalion Festival in Illinois and earlier this month he was spotted at the 2016 Brooklyn Book Festival where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Okey Ndibe and other prominent authors from all over the world. At the festival, he participated in a panel discussion entitled “Body Language – Heart, Eyes, Blood” with French writer Maylis de Kerangal and Chilean Lina Meruane.
Between all the book launches, signings and readings, Ntshanga has also been an excellent interviewee.
On Friday, 23 September, he was a guest on WOSU Radio in Columbus, Ohio, where he discussed The Reactive with host Christopher Purdy, WOSU book critic Kassie Rose and author Lina Maria Ferreira Castenga-Valdenas.
Ntshanga speaks about the title of the book and the special relationship between the characters. Rose says she was “greatly taken in by the voice” in The Reactive. “That voice took me through all of the book.”
Listen to the podcast:
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During his visit to Columbus, the author was a visiting scholar at the Columbus College of Art & Design and he also chatted to Justin McIntosh for Columbus Alive.
Read the interview:
Violence buzzes in the background, though it’s mostly unnoticed by the characters, in the same way that, over time, you can learn to ignore the train that passes behind your house. Seen from above, Ntshanga notes, South African fields look like honeycombs because they’re dotted with so many empty graves. Cecilia, for one, isn’t disturbed by the gunshots so much as the lack of sirens that follow. Nathi tries to justify the brutality around him.
“This isn’t so much killing as it is cleaning up a mess,” he says. “These kids, all of them, they’re already dead.”
Today, Ntshanga will attend the Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City and tomorrow he’ll visit the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s creative writing students.
Next week, the author will do a reading at an event hosted by the University of Georgia Creative Writing Program and the Avid Poetry Series. He will also visit the Emory College Department of Arts and Sciences.
We have our Google alerts set and our ears on the ground, so watch this space for more exciting news on Ntshanga’s US book tour. You can also follow him on Twitter @mntshanga or see the complete tour schedule on Two Dollar Radio’s website.
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Book details
- The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga
Book homepage
EAN: 9781415207192
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- The Reactive: US Edition by Masande Ntshanga
Book homepage
EAN: 9781937512439
Find this book with BOOK Finder!