The Sunday News
WITH more interesting books being adapted for the big screen, it has become every author’s dream to have their work converted into visual images and shown to the world on the big screen.
Titshabona Ncube, who authored the book Igazi Labafo, is not one to let this dream slip through his fingers as he believes the novel has all it takes to be converted into a visual television series. As a result he has started working on the second version of the book, Igazi Labafo 2.
Ncube, who is based in the United Kingdom, is also a music writer and producer who has written a number of articles for various publications.
Written in dominantly Ndebele, Zulu and Xhosa, the novel Igazi Labafo tracks the life of Mpundule, a character who is a victim of stereotyping and tribal prejudice who finds himself trapped in a system that knows no leniency.
On arrival in downtown Johannesburg, he finds himself fighting for survival. Fateful circumstances become a factor for him joining a Mafia-style criminal gang, and, in this vicious circle, he discovers that no matter how fast he can run his life, he just cannot hide from predestination. Mpundule becomes a typical tragic hero.
Ncube told Sunday Leisure that writing was always in his genes as his writing skills were visible at a very tender age while he was still in primary school.
He added that African writers such as Sibusiso Nyembezi a Zulu novel writer and Cont Mhlanga have been great inspirations to him.
“As a primary school kid I used to write good compositions and my teacher always praised me as a potentially good writer, so I pursued that dream later on.
“When I visited Hillbrow in Johannesburg for the first time, I found life there stranger than fiction and the first thing that came into my head was to highlight the plight of my brothers and sisters,” he said.
The novel seems to have captured exactly what Ncube was trying to convey, the realistic features of the book have made some of the readers feel as if they were the characters in the novel.
“The first person who read my book thought I was actually talking about his life. Then, the second and the third felt the same. The book reflects the lives of many individuals, specifically those who vacate their countries in pursuit of greener pastures in Johannesburg,” he said.
Ncube said he had no problem writing in different languages as he can use words from any language to express his imaginations perfectly.
“I may encounter a situation where I fail to find the appropriate superlatives to match my imaginations, I therefore relate to other languages like Zulu, Xhosa, and SiSwati.
“One of these Nguni dialects will definitely have what I am looking for, if not I just create a word of my own as long as it describes what I mean, it is called etymology,” he said.
Ncube said the book was an action packed one hence his idea of working on Igazi Labafo 2 with the intention of converting it into a visual television series.
“I am actually working on Igazi Labafo 2 because the book is action packed with all its realistic features I want the story to be a TV series one day” he said.
Ncube said he uses social media to reach his targeted audience and also online stores such as smashword.com.
He said although there were difficulties in promoting a non-English book in the UK, technology comes in handy as it shrinks the world into a small community.
