The Mud Hut I Grew Upon is a work of fiction that elicits inspiration from present, past and future pains. Transcending from the colonial crimes of one Ngwato regent against a rebellious group of Bakalanga in Botswana. It explores the Congolese war that thrusts a hardened refugee boy beyond the southern sands of the Kalahari delves onto the 'second' fall of Zimbabwe whose demise is felt by the thousands of immigrants women who crossed into Botswana to sell themselves for a living. These historical events catapult three lives in a collision course - in Botswana's young metropolis - Gaborone. A city built from the ashes of bones that fill the hot, dry air moving in from the Kalahari desert. An enigma. A city that swallows dreams and spits out ambitions. The book explores chaotic worlds of prostitution, murder, rape and the basic instinct to survive as festered by the tiny mud huts that the characters were raised upon. Meet: MALEKA: A young, half-educated girl from Zimbabwe - a country consumed by an avalanche of economic meltdown - that crumbled down on her and her family leaving her homeless, country-less and with no shred of dignity to hold on to. Like thousands of many Zimbabweans she makes transit to Botswana where she gets caught up in a new system if slavery. Prostitution. All she can pray for; hope for and stay alive for - is to make it back home to her son... Someday! TABOKA: A fifteen year old boy who finds himself having to choose between dying of poverty and risking his freedom to survive. SHIMMY: The man-child who abandoned his two sons at the village, got married to a new woman in the city and yet still finds himself in the dirt of civilized society. KWEZI: A former refugee from Congo who made it across the border in Botswana and builds an empire as drug-lord and a human-trafficker of fellow refugees
About the Author: "Thabo Katlholo is a poet and novelist who grew up in the small village of Nswazwi located in the North East, Botswana. Thabo currently resides in Botswana's Capital City, Gaborone, and is mostly at home weaving the melancholy and macabre into settings and scenes, twisting the expected into the unexpected. The author of The Mud Hut I Grew Upon and a poetry anthology, Beyond the Tropic of Capricorn is establishing himself as one of the most creative writers to come out of Africa in the New Millenium, having written a number of thought provoking Articles and Commentaries for different public forums. He is holds a BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Botswana and Certification in Project Management from the University of Stellenbosch Business School and has used his time for the past four years to advocate for tobacco control policies in Botswana. The Mud Hut I Grew Upon is his first Novel.