What does it mean to be a woman in contemporary South Africa?
Being a woman who writes contemporary romance in South Africa means I get to share the romance part of our stories. There’s more to us Africans than just the struggle. There is love, desire, heartbreak, hope, laughter and romance too. Those parts of our lives deserve to be represented in stories we read and tell. Growing up, many of the African stories I encountered often focused on hardship, poverty, family struggles or the challenges of being African. These stories are very important because they reflect realities that should not be ignored. However, I also believe that our stories should be allowed to be soft. We should be able to fall in love, make mistakes, experience heartbreak and find our happily-ever-afters. We deserve stories where African women are not only surviving but also dreaming, loving, and choosing the lives they want. Writing contemporary romance gives me the opportunity to do exactly that. I can create characters who look like us, speak like us and experience relationships in ways that feel familiar. I can write about the complexities of love while placing African women at the centre of those stories.
Which book(s) by a South African woman writer made the single biggest contribution(s) to your literary work?
Books such as Hlomu the Wife by Dudu Busani-Dube and Unconditional Love by Nombuso Dlamini showed me that people like me are telling our stories and that there are readers who want to hear them. Seeing African women write about love, relationships and the realities of our lives encouraged me to believe that I could share my own stories too.
Margaret Atwood wrote: “A word after a word after a word is power.” How do you reclaim your power as a woman writer in South Africa?
I claim my power by reminding myself that my voice matters. There might be a lot of writers in South Africa and there might be countless romance novels being published every year but none of those writers can tell my stories exactly the way I can. My experience, imagination and understanding of love shape the stories I create. I also know that my stories are not only for me. There are readers who see themselves in my characters. There are women who find comfort in a story after a difficult day. There are people who find joy, hope and even healing in romance.
• Phiri’s latest novel, A Love That Heals, is published by Kwela.
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