ON 14 September 2017, JIAS, the UJ Department of English and Deep South hosted the Johannesburg launch of the novel Bird-Monk Seding, by Lesego Rampolokeng.

Lesego Rampolokeng is a poet and performance maestro and the author of 12 books, including two plays and three novels. He has collaborated with visual artists, playwrights, film-makers, theatre and opera producers, poets and musicians. His no-holds-barred style, radical political-aesthetic perspective and instantly recognisable voice have brought him a unique place in South African literature.

 Bird-Monk Seding, Rampolokeng’s third novel, is a stark picture of life in a rural township two decades into South Africa’s democracy. Listening and observing in the streets and taverns, narrator Bavino Sekete, often feeling desperate himself, is thrown back to his own violent childhood in Soweto. To get through, he turns to his pantheon of jazz innovators and radical writers.