Author: K. Sello Duiker
Publisher: Umuzi
Published in: 2006

Eleven-year-old Nolitye’s granny used to say: if you mess with a woman, you mess with a stone. When Nolitye finds a magical stone on the dusty streets of Phola, her granny’s words take on a new meaning. Along with her two friend – the somewhat pampered Bheki, and Four Eyes, a reformed member of the Spoilers gang led by Rotten Nellie – Nolitye puts the powers of the stone to good use: for the first time the threesome can stand up to the Spoilers; Nolitye can save the life of Rex, the leader of a pack of talking township mutts; and dare to look scary MaMtonga with her living brown-and-green snake necklace in the eye. But soon Nolitye finds out that the purplish-blue magic stone is but five stones needed to put right things that started to go wrong the day her father died in a mining accident when she was five years old. Or so she was told by her mother…

***

The Hidden Star is Duiker’s third novel and it was published posthumously. His first novel Thirteen Cents won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for best first book, Africa region. His second novel, The Quiet Violence of Dream, also won the 2002 Herman Charles Bosman Prize.

The Quiet Violence of Dreams is the only novel by K. Sello Duiker I haven’t read yet. I could’ve bought it this one time, but the lady at the till told me that my student card could only buy academic textbooks. I tried to convince her, even begged, and when that failed I lied and said I was doing Honours in Literature and this was one of the required readings, but, she wouldn’t budge.

It’s policy, she said.

Stupid policy, I muttered ti myself before walking out of the shop without the book. Sad! I really wanted to read the book. Why wouldn’t she allow me to buy it? It was my money and surely I had a right to buy whatever book I wanted to buy with it.

***

I was happy when I found The Hidden Star at the library. The library here is not well-stocked with contemporary literature. I mean, they don’t even have books by critically-acclaimed South African writers like Zakes Mda. But, sometimes, if you’re patient enough in your search, you’ll find a literary gem.

When I saw The Hidden Star on the shelf, I closed my eyes and silently said my thanks. I knew I had found gold.

I looked at the cover. I picked it up and ran my fingers on it. I read the blurb at the back, and what I felt then I cannot translate into words. Excitement, maybe? As I left the library, I had the book in my hands; tossing and turning it in disbelief.

The Hidden Star is a strange book; with dogs and donkeys that talk, a stone with magical powers and a 11 years old Nolitye, and her friends Bheki and Four-Eyes. I don’t know why but I love books that have children as main characters. Stories like these remind me of myself. I try to imagine what I was doing at their age, how life was then, whether I can relate their childhood dilemmas to mine.

I could relate to 10 year old Darling in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names. The boys marooned in an Island in “Lord of the Violence” taught me a lot about human beings and the nature of evil and good that is inherently within every human being, child or old. The characters might be children – but their way of looking at the world can open even the eyes of one, like myself, who considers herself as an adult.

The Hidden Star is a strange, but beautiful book nonetheless. It’s strange in the sense that some of the things that occur in the book are not things that usually happen in our everyday lives. It’s not every day that one comes across a dog that can hold conversations or even talk with human beings, but this happens in the book. And when it does happen, in the pages of the book, it seems like the most natural thing to happen. It surprises the reader, but not so much that it distracts him/her from enjoying the story. Although some of the things that happen in the story seem implausible in reality (e.g. Nolitye’s father being turned into a baobab tree by Ncitjana), but within the world of the story all these things are believable and possible.

I also liked how Duiker used African mythology to tell a contemporary story in a modern township. His style of writing and the themes that he explores in his work are breathtakingly refreshing. It’s sad that he passed on at the age of 30, with only three novels under his belt. And if the two novels I have read are anything to go by, one can only imagine what other works of art he would have produced had he lived longer.

Rating: 5/5
★★★★★

Dish it: What are you reading now?