BLOOD SKIN BONES is a poetry collection that covers diverse sub themes, from nostalgia to world politics to the admiration of the natural world to deep self-introspection. But the dominant packaging theme of this collection is mortality. Mortality of the body, the mind and the soul.
Thabiso Tshowa’s debut book of short stories, Mrova, is a striking collection of sketch-like tales that bring to life the rhythm, voice, movement, and activity of daily life in the small town of Bethal, Mpumalanga.
“A daily writing practice over the past two years has led to my writing on a wide range of themes. I suspect that someone pours a little poetry dust into my ear each night as I sleep because I wake up with a few lines of rhyme from the dream world to tinker with from the first moment of the day.”
Written in an intensely lyrical mode with very strong elements of African narrative poetry, this collection is imbued with the spirit of the imbongi, in that its language is lush and overwhelming, incantatory and rhythmic in its power, Nelson Ratau incorporates social happenings with the larger than life, the heroic.
BLOOD SKIN BONES is a poetry collection that covers diverse sub themes, from nostalgia to world politics to the admiration of the natural world to deep self-introspection. But the dominant packaging theme of this collection is mortality. Mortality of the body, the mind and the soul. 
Thabiso Tshowa’s debut book of short stories, Mrova, is a striking collection of sketch-like tales that bring to life the rhythm, voice, movement, and activity of daily life in the small town of Bethal, Mpumalanga. 
A thread that binds the ten stories in What the Trumpeter Said is their locations, exotic for some, routine for others – like life itself. 
“A daily writing practice over the past two years has led to my writing on a wide range of themes. I suspect that someone pours a little poetry dust into my ear each night as I sleep because I wake up with a few lines of rhyme from the dream world to tinker with from the first moment of the day.” 
Written in an intensely lyrical mode with very strong elements of African narrative poetry, this collection is imbued with the spirit of the imbongi, in that its language is lush and overwhelming, incantatory and rhythmic in its power, Nelson Ratau incorporates social happenings with the larger than life, the heroic.