My feature on behalf of the Sunday Times: http://bit.ly/32ATm7R

~The Five lost their taste for adventure when the streets exposed them to the fact that they were not able to be heroes when it mattered most.~

~His heart aches, wishing people could have the easy fluidity of the computer whose readiness to receive new data and code, to experiment with languages and grammars that are almost always unfamiliar, is exemplary. The computer has no ideals, no culture and tradition - even the source code can be rewritten and replaced with a multitude of context free grammars for purposes of adaptation and evolution. He hangs his arms around the monitor in an act of love and solidarity. The computer stands alone and unburdened, just like him.~

~Photos, he sees, are good mirrors of the past, but unreliable reflections of the future.~

~We all think we're special or breaking with tradition to do things for ourselves, but it's all just part of a pattern. A system of sameness that make us think that we're all doing it differently.~

~What will the soil make of us? What will it make of our children?~

I've been reading a lot of South African literature over the last couple of years, and this was definitely a different side of SA from a lot of other work. It's very easy reading, even if the language does get a bit self-important in the last couple of Neha chapters. One of those books where not a lot happens, but the characters are vivid and you want to follow their stories.

Really loved this. It felt so incredibly familiar and yet also exposed me to a South African setting that I have no experience of - and I'm afraid to say, I didn't even know of Lenasia before this (despite also coming from the former "Transvaal"). I devoured this book, which was a refreshing read that I ploughed through in a few short but intense bursts of reading. Moonsamy has fit and incredible amount of character development into 240-odd pages. Highly recommend!