Ndumiso Zondi's three must-reads

I once lived in Pietermaritzburg.

- Lesego Chepape

I arrived there tired, tired of Johannesburg, tired of the noise, the urgency, the performance of becoming. I had no plan whatsoever, only a quiet need to breathe again. It remains the best decision of my life.What I found was not spectacle. It was sincerity. An arts scene that did not reach for polish or permission. People making do with what they had and somehow creating everything they needed.

A poetry session at a local tavern where words were exchanged like currency. A rap battle unfolding outside the library, verses bouncing off concrete and passing bodies. A makeshift popup thrift store squeezed next to a gogo selling vegetables at the market; art and survival sharing the same pavement. I fell in love instantly, not with the idea of the place but with its honesty.

It was there that I met poet and radio presenter Ndumiso Zondi. At the time, I didn’t know how much his work would settle into me.

I had the privilege of watching many of his pieces performed live and what struck me was how familiar they felt. He wrote about places, spaces and people he encountered every day.

People I recognised because of where I come from, because of what shaped me. These were not distant characters or romanticised figures. They were our neighbours, our relatives, ourselves.