A Brave Woman & Other Essays

A Brave Woman & Other Essays is a unique and captivating collection by a single author, featuring all four types of essays. It masterfully blends personal experiences from the author’s upbringing in a village and his current life in the suburbs. This book is a treasure trove for secondary school students, literature enthusiasts, and social science researchers alike, offering insightful glimpses into African literature, with a special focus on South Africa. It’s a rare find that bridges diverse worlds and offers valuable perspectives to a wide range of readers.

Musoline Soga Mlandu was born in 1950 at Mhlotsheni Village in the district of Mount Frere, and resides in the suburb of North Crest in Mthatha, Eastern Cape. He is the former member of Mayoral Committee for King Sabatha Dalindyebo Municipality as chairperson of the portfolio for Public Safety and Transport. He published his isiXhosa school books through Via Afrika, JL Van Schaik, Lovedale Press and Vivlia; as well as his English books: collection of essays, The Scheme and other Essays (Imbizo Arts Publishing, 2004), collection of short stories, The Tell Me Again Stories (Lovedale Press, 2013), collection of poems, The Easy Pattern (Imbizo Arts Publishing, 2015) and the autobiographical novel, Things Happen for a Purpose (His Righteousness, 2018). Soga edited a book of fact, South Africa is Part of Africa (Educall, 2000) written by a Kenyan author, Anthony Kambi Masha.

He also translated the isiXhosa popular folksong, UNogayoyo, and published the text in the Botsotso Magazine of 1999. He facilitated writers workshops organised by the African Writers Association (AWA), Simanywa Lusiba Writers Club (Mthatha) which he was its co-founder and its original chairperson, Imbizo Arts Publishing and the Eastern Cape Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. His English and isiXhosa poems, essays and short stories have appeared in the South African commercial magazines and literary journals including Tribute, Imprint, Botsotso, Kotaz, Timbila, Echoes, New Coin, Jack Journal and publications of the former University of Transkei (now Walter Sisulu University) such as the UNITRA News and Festaac Magazine. Publishes book reviews and articles in Kotaz Magazine (PE). This current member of the Eastern Cape Literary Society was in 2013 invited by the Rhodes University’s Institute for the Study of English in Africa (ISEA) as Mellon writer-in-residence. And Soga is recipient of 4 writers awards from Tribute Magazine Sanlam and Provincial Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.