The Quiet Violence of Dreams by Sello Duiker

The main character here is Tshepo but the narrative is made up of alternating points of view of his friends and people he meets along the way at the psychiatric institution, his home, and work. Set in Cape Town, this book is looks at post-apartheid society through the lens of sex, desire, and race.

My review cannot begin to cover the complexity of this novel’s six-hundred pages. For giving me real people with real issues living in this real unforgiving world. For Sello's ability to delve deep into the recesses of his emotions and bring them out untarnished. I gave it 5 phat starts for the beautiful writing. I think that he set the tone for Nthikeng Mohlele's 'Pleasure', Ekow Duker's 'The God Who Made Mistakes' and Nakhane Toure's 'Piggy Boy's Blues'. Sello penned this enthralling narrative with so much depth of emotion. You'd think that, us, the children of post 1976, would treat our fellow human beings with compassion, understanding, acceptance and brotherly-love because WE know how it feels to be marginalized and discriminated against. Just read through a few of Koleka Putuma's poetry collection, 'Collective Amnesia' and see the violence with which our children, brothers and sisters are treated. And then, I Iook back to the timelines, how receptive were SAfricans of the LGBT community then? Have we made any inroads in that regards? All I know is, we are still persecuting them for not fitting into our neatly labelled and lined boxes. I sometimes felt like slapping him, Tshepo, other times, I just wanted to fold him in a hearty embrace and say, 'Don't be afraid, do you'.

This very dramatic story of Tshepo AKA Angelo was such an emotional rollercoaster.

The Quiet Violence of Dreams by Sello Duiker