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DESCRIPTION:reading from his acclaimed new novel\n\nThe Reactive\n\nfrom Two Dollar 
 Radio\n\nHeralded in the author's native South Africa as "the hottest novel 
 of the year," The Reactive is a clear-eyed and compassionate depiction of a 
 young HIV+ man grappling with the sudden death of his younger brother, for 
 which he feels unduly responsible.\n\nLindanathi and his friends—Cecelia 
 and Ruan—make their living working low-paying jobs and selling 
 anti-retroviral drugs (during the period in South Africa before ARVs became 
 broadly distributed). In between, they huff glue, drift in and out of 
 parties, and traverse the streets of Cape Town, where they observe the 
 grave material disparities of their country. A mysterious masked man 
 appears seeking to buy their surplus of ARVs, an offer that would present 
 the three with the opportunity to escape their environs, while at the same 
 time forcing Lindanathi to confront his path, and finally, his 
 past.\n\nWith brilliant, shimmering prose, Ntshanga has delivered a 
 redemptive, ambitious, and unforgettable first novel.\n\nMasande Ntshanga 
 is the winner of the inaugural PEN International New Voices Award in 2013, 
 and a finalist for the Caine Prize in 2015. He was born in East London in 
 1986 and graduated with a degree in Film and Media and an Honours degree in 
 English Studies from UCT, where he became a creative writing fellow, 
 completing his Masters in Creative Writing under the Mellon Mays 
 Foundation. He received a Fulbright Award, an NRF Freestanding Masters 
 scholarship, a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship and a Bundanon Trust Award. His 
 work has appeared in The White Review, Chimurenga, VICE and n + 1. He has 
 also written for Rolling Stone magazine.\n\nCritical Praise for the work of 
 Masande Ntshanga:\n\n*Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize 
 Finalist\n\n*Etisalat Prize for Literature Longlist\n\n*One of the Best 
 Books of the Year —City Press, The Sunday Times, The Star, This is 
 Africa, Africa's a Country, Sunday World\n\n"[The Reactive is] a searing, 
 gorgeously written account of life, love, illness, and death in South 
 Africa. With exquisite prose, formal innovation, and a masterful command of 
 storytelling, Ntshanga illustrates how some young people navigated the dusk 
 that followed the dawn of freedom in South Africa and humanizes the 
 casualties of the Mbeki government's fatal policies on HIV & 
 AIDS."\n—Naomi Jackson, Poets & Writers\n\n"Woozy, touching... a novel 
 that delivers an unexpected love letter to Cape Town, painting it as a 
 place of frustrated glory. The Reactive often teems with a beauty that 
 seems to carry on in front of its glue-huffing wasters despite 
 themselves."\n—Marian Ryan, Slate\n\n\n"One of South Africa's most 
 promising new voices... Ntshanga weaves a rollercoaster ride of a story 
 that will leave you questioning the meaning of family, despair, and 
 hope."\n\n—Ayiba Magazine\n\n"[The Reactive] takes place during a period 
 of social and political tumult that mirrors that mental turmoil of the lead 
 character, and it makes for an extremely sharp, challenging read. This is 
 not a book about a fast-paced, compelling plot. It's a character study, an 
 emotional journey, and right from the opening line, it's a brutal 
 indictment"\n—XOJane.com\n\n"Sharp and affecting... [Ntshanga] directs 
 the story with an amazing precision of language that few writers can 
 achieve in a lifetime of work. With a style all his own, Ntshanga animates 
 despair and agitation in a collage of moments, memories and landscapes that 
 speak volumes of a exigent moment in South African history. Ntshanga 
 grapples with the past and the too-real present with grace, but not 
 clemency, with hope, but not too much."\n—Alibi\n\n"With The Reactive, 
 [Ntshanga] has created an immersive and powerful portrait of drug use, 
 community, and health issues by exploring what it was like to be young, 
 black, South African, and HIV positive in the early 
 aughts."\n—VICE\n\n"[The Reactive] is an affecting, slow-burning novel 
 that gives a fantastic sense of a particular place and time, and of the 
 haunted inner life of its protagonist."\n—Minneapolis 
 Star-Tribune\n\n"This novel about an HIV+ man who mourns the death of his 
 brother in Cape Town is shaping up to be one of the best debuts of 
 2016."\n—Flavorwire\n\n"Hailed as a fresh and fearless portrait of 
 contemporary South African life, The Reactive marks Ntshanga as a global 
 talent to watch."\n—Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, Largehearted Boy\n\n"A 
 book that sucks us like vapor through the streets of Cape Town. [Ntshanga] 
 has a sympathetic ear for the particular rhythms of young friendship, the 
 banter, the petty arguments, the sticky and fleeting fun."\n—The 
 Rumpus\n\n"[The Reactive] is a seriously powerful book set in a place I 
 know little about, featuring people dealing with things I know little 
 about; but somehow, the amazing themes of redemption, struggle, and the 
 attempt to find meaning in life made it possible to connect in a compelling 
 way with these characters."\n—Kelsey Westenberg, Roscoe 
 Books\n\n"Ntshanga deftly illustrates the growing pains of a new country 
 through three friends who seem intent on obliterating their minds, but who 
 nevertheless cling to their dreams."\n—Vol. 1 Brooklyn\n\n"Gritty and 
 revealing, Ntshanga's debut novel offers a brazen portrait of present-day 
 South Africa. This is an eye-opening, ambitious novel."\n—Publishers 
 Weekly\n\n"Ntshanga offers a devastating story yet tells it with noteworthy 
 glow and flow that keeps pages turning until the glimmer-of-hope 
 ending."\n—Library Journal\n\n"A powerful, compassionate story that 
 refuses to rest or shuffle off into the murk of the mind. It exists so that 
 we never forget."\n—Numero Cinq Magazine\n\n"Electrifying... [Ntshanga] 
 succeeds at exploring major themes—illness, family, and, most 
 effectively, class—while keeping readers in suspense. Ntshanga's 
 promising debut is both moving and satisfyingly complex."\n—Kirkus 
 Reviews\n\n"[The Reactive is] one of this year's most startling 
 novels."\n—Mail & Guardian\n\n"From time to time a novel comes along that 
 is so strange, yet so utterly fresh and compelling, that it feels tuned 
 into a reality with which you are not yet familiar."\n—Aerodrome\n\n"One 
 of [Ntshanga's] best qualities as a writer is to defamiliarize aspects of 
 South African existence, which through our habits of speaking and writing, 
 have boiled down to bland indifference... The Reactive will probably 
 remain, along with Imraan Coovadia's High Low In-between and Jonny 
 Steinberg's Three Letter Plague, as a seminal work confronting [a] period 
 in our country's history."\n—The Sunday Independent\n\n"Masande 
 Ntshanga’s debut novel The Reactive follows an HIV-positive young man who 
 is dealing with the long-lasting trauma of his brother’s death by selling 
 his antiretroviral drugs, chewing a lot of khat and drifting around 
 suburban Cape Town with his friends. Describing the novel baldly, though, 
 ignores its immense thematic depth. [The Reactive is] one of this year’s 
 most startling novels."\n—Mail & Guardian\n\n"Elegiac... an astoundingly 
 brilliant novel, radiating with understanding and compassion. It fulfills 
 William Faulkner’s injunction that 'the poet’s voice need not merely be 
 the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him 
 endure and prevail.'"\n—City Press\n\n"With a fine lyricism of style 
 Ntshanga weaves a story both filled with ennui and weird purpose. And if 
 that sounds unlikely, it is a feat he pulls off with brilliance... The 
 shining point of this novel is the author's ability to create the confusion 
 and changes young South Africans have to deal with. In a modern state there 
 are calls and cries from the past that still make claims on them. They face 
 uncertainty with their loud music, their counter-cultural lifestyles, but 
 beneath the veneer they are all likeable characters who are searching for 
 authenticity. Never preachy or pretentious, this book is a breath of fresh 
 air in an often fetid landscape. Read it, savor the beauty of the writing, 
 and you will find yourself drawn into a dreamscape you may 
 recognize."\n—The New Age\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/09/06/18790920.php
SUMMARY:An evening with Masande Ntshanga
LOCATION:City Lights Bookstore\n261 Columbus Ave\nSan Francisco CA
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/09/06/18790920.php
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