«From da kokroach point of view, humans are irrelvant. Kokroaches no like em. Doan want em. Do not even tink bout em. Doan care for deh conversations. Books we like to eat, not read. We wish humans dead so we can eat em too.» — Sizwe Bantu, The Cockroach Whisperer, 2010.
Sizwe Bantu is the Greatest African Writer of All Time — according to Timothy Turner, failed academic and lover, who not only lives by Bantu’s words but keeps a giant rubber cockroach in homage to the writer of the renowned ‘cockroach stories’.
Inspired to travel to Bantu country, Timothy takes up a position at a university near the place rumoured to be the reclusive writer’s residence in the misty Zululand hills. Instead of drawing closer to his source of inspiration, Timothy is drawn into a Machiavellian world of campus politics and suppressed desire.
As Timothy grapples with the mystery surrounding Makaya, the academic he has replaced, and the demands of his students, particularly the attractive Tracey, he must confront his own paranoia, prejudice and insecurity in a search for the shocking truth.
Cokcraco is an exhilarating, playful and witty novel that explores writing, identity and politics.
