Nhlalwenhle Luthuli and mentor Sifiso Mzobe check out her story ‘Dark Cloud’ on fundza.mobi
Nhlalwenhle Londeka Luthuli is a remarkable woman. She is a domestic worker by day and a writer by night as well as a mother to twins. Her employer doesn’t know that when she knocks off her work as a cleaner, she sits up late into the night writing gripping powerful stories on her Samsung Galaxy, that’s when she’s not training at the karate dojo – she has a brown belt in karate.
Nhlalwenhle is one of a FunDza mentee writers. She’s been working with award-winning author, Sifiso Mzobe (author of Young Blood) to write short stories for FunDza. Sifiso not only mentors Nhlalwenhle but he also translates her work into English and content edits it too.
Given her dedication and determination to advance her writing skills, FunDza decided to give her a laptop to work on so she doesn’t need to type on her cellphone any longer.
Sunday, October 9th, was a memorable day for Nhlalwenhle and Sifiso, as well as for Dorothy and myself. Up until then we had been communicating via email with Nhlalwenhle but on that day we got to meet her in person at the Spur in KwaDukuza. She had taken taxis down from Richard’s Bay to meet us and we had driven up from Durban.
Nhlalwenhle, proud owner of a new laptop and inspired to keep on writing.
Sifiso shows Nhlalwenhle how to work her laptop
Over burgers we got to know a bit more about this inspirational woman who grew up in rural KwaZulu-Natal – one of 14 children in her family.
Her story Dark Cloud or, in isiZulu Ithunzi Elimnyama was recently published on FunDza’s mobi network.
My highlight was when Sifiso showed Nhlalwenhle her story on his cellphone and when she asked if she could keep the laptop forever. We said goodbye knowing that this meeting would lead to many more stories from a very talented young writer and that the laptop would make it a great deal easier for her to keep writing.
Click here to find out more about Nhlalwenhle.