Despite the flaws in the latest novel by South African writer Nthikeng Mohlele, there is something alluring about Revolutionaries’ House. It is Mohlele’s most political novel, and the parallels drawn between love and politics – and their pitfalls – are intriguing.
Revolutionaries’ House is timely. It advocates the desperate need for South Africa’s political elite to take a step back and evaluate its own deficiencies before thinking of a possible path into a better future. Too little has changed for too few since democracy in 1994.
It’s Mohlele’s eighth novel and follows the narrator Mr Winston, “a politician first and foremost”. He is an active member of Revolutionaries’ House, South Africa’s fictional ruling party and its headquarters of the same name. But he can no longer stomach his party’s shortcomings.
