Book of the Month

Bosadi (2026) by medical doctor turned novelist Kopano Matlwa is her fourth novel and in it she chronicles and centres a story for women, told by women and about the lives of women. The book follows on from her debut award-winning novel Coconut (2007), which was followed by Spilt Milk (2010), and Period Pain published in 2016 and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize.

The story places focus on Naledi Moloi née Sefako (Twinki), an up-and-coming black professional who is married to her university sweetheart Lesedi Moloi, a struggling wannabee businessman and aspiring ‘tenderpreneur’. Bosadi is in essence a narrative about the precarious nature of middle-class black life where dealing with the demanding tentacles of ‘black tax’, lofty aspirations of having regular overseas holidays and latest SUV’s, all of which often comes at great personal, professional and social cost.

It is also Mercy’s (or Aunty as Naledi refers to her) story, of having to leave her home to work as a maid – her friendship with Memory who is also a domestic helper to another family at Mount Grace.
The setting for Bosadi is just prior to and somewhere within the years of the Covid-19 global pandemic with its perplexing conditions for ‘social distancing’, travel bans and bans on any kind of social gatherings.

Other key characters to the story include Rakgadi Moloi, Lesedi’s overbearing mother who makes it her duty to taunt Naledi at every turn for her not having given birth (and later losing a child) when all within the extended family were expecting it to have happened much sooner.

Outside of Matlakala (Naledi’s other name given to her by Lesedi’s mother as per tradition when one marries into a family) and Naledi’s marital problems, other themes include the pressures ‘extended family’ expectations, conflict between tradition/culture and Christian values, GBV, femicide and how women are forced to navigate abusive relationships whilst dealing with gaslighting.

In Bosadi, Matlwa also brings focus to the complexities of marriage, consequences of infidelity and how women are forced to carry the burden of holding families together against the backdrop of a patriarchal, judgemental and unforgiving society.

This review is part of the Book of the Month series 2026 from the Goethe-Institut South Africa. A new review by South Africans for South Africans will be published every month, check back regularly. 

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