Fabulous reads – Author illuminates minds of musically-inclined readers

Illumination, Nthikeng Mohlele, Pan Macmillan, ISBN: 9781 7701 06253

AS someone who is strongly influenced by music and spirituality, this is a story after my own heart.

It took me back to Saturday afternoons when my father dusted off our old and only record player – a prized possession – with Teddy Pendergrass first up on the play list.

Accomplished and celebrated jazz trumpeter, composer and band leader, Bantubonke lives through the hardships of the apartheid era in South Africa, witnessing deaths, violence, arrest and, later in life, a broken and unsuccessful relationship.

His love for music and the arts consumes him to such an extent that it makes the harsh realities he faces seem like secondary happenings in his life.

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The mention of iconic musicians like Tupac, Angelique Kidjo, The Manhattans and Phuzekhemisi are a true reflection that music is so universal and can have different influences in different parts of a person’s life.

Bantuboke’s comparisons of Jozi with New York also reveals that he is well-travelled.

It is definitely PG16 as I found the sexual details descriptive and intense.

I’ve never been to the city of Johannesburg but the manner in which Bantubonke describes it, I definitely do not want to catch a plane, bus, a taxi, or anything to get me to the city with a ‘magnetic buzz’.

Bantubonke’s artistic imagination makes the ugly and hurtful experiences of life seem like a musical, something that is made with an end.

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