Layered: Lebo Mazibuko’s novel Fabrics of Love came out in August. Photo: Thandukwazi Lungelo Gcabashe
Two days is how long it took me to read Lebo Mazibuko’s debut novel Bantu Knots, released in 2021. Her second novel Fabrics of Love, however, took me almost two weeks. Not only due to a tight work schedule, but because the themes of family secrets, generational trauma and fatherlessness were too weighty at times.
Soweto-born writer Mazibuko’s work explores love, identity, womanhood and cultural heritage. Her stories centre powerful female voices and the complexities of family, tradition and modern life.
With this second novel, which took four years to pen, Mazibuko continues her mission to decipher these complexities. She gives us a sweeping family saga, told through the women of the Ntoi family, confronting tradition, healing past trauma and pursuing dreams.
“Fabrics of Love is a story that closely explores the fabric of the black family — what holds the family together, the generational traumas passed down and the secrets and unresolved issues that rip the family apart,” Mazibuko says in our interview.
Through sacrifice and love, Buang, the unmarried matriarch, works hard to hold the Ntoi family together. She lives with her two daughters — the reclusive Rosemary and the unapologetic Gal.
They are later joined by Moipone, Buang’s niece. Carrying invisible scars from her childhood, Moipone has left Botshabelo to visit her estranged father’s family — the Ntois — in Soweto
Meanwhile, the head of the family Lemohang Ntoi, the grandfather, is struggling to hold onto the life he knew as he quietly grieves his wife.
The son, Seun Ntoi, has been out of the family home for a while, but has a persistent claim, leading to tension between him and his sister Buang.
As such, the Ntoi women’s assertiveness and drive threatens Lemohang and Seun’s position and ideals for this family.
Reading this novel demands time and focus due to the layered story driven by multiple characters. Mazibuko says Fabrics of Love was intentionally written from multiple points of view — a difficult approach to take while maintaining the story’s forward momentum.
“I wanted to challenge myself as a writer. There are a lot more characters in Fabrics of Love, [than in Bantu Knots], which is a lot to keep up with while writing.
“It is also such a layered story and I eventually realised that I wouldn’t be able to tie everything up in one book. In other words, there’s still more coming,” Mazibuko adds.
She experienced a lot of anxiety throughout the process of writing her second novel.
“When I was writing Bantu Knots, I wasn’t aware of the scrutiny that comes with putting your work out there. I was afraid of dropping the ball with my second book and was in my head a lot.
“I was constantly worried about how people would receive it, and wanted it to be just as good as the first, if not better.”
Fabrics of Love is mainly driven by the Ntoi women, with each chapter focusing on one character.
We follow them as they define the women they want to become and the love they deserve.
The Ntoi women are known throughout Soweto for their beauty, style and their love of church and Sunday lunches. But they are silently battling with buried secrets and inherited traumas, which create dysfunctional family bonds.
Despite the distressing themes, the novel is not a difficult read, helping to make the multi-character storyline digestible and relatable.
Mazibuko says Buang’s character was mostly inspired by her mother and her three grandmothers.
“My mother takes her Sunday seven-colour dishes very seriously, while my one grandmother has instilled the importance of education in us. My other two grandmothers are both devout Catholics. There’s an element of each of them in Buang.”
Since the book’s launch in August, Mazibuko says she has realised that Rosemary’s character has resonated with many readers — but she was the hardest to write.
“Strangely, she’s turning out to be everybody’s favourite. Rosemary was a challenge because she keeps so much inside. She’s not as open or vulnerable as the other characters in the book.
“She has a sharp tongue and a tough exterior, but she’s also the most fragile of the Ntoi women, which is why she is so guarded.
“It was difficult to show all of these layers,” the author says.
Rosemary and her sister Gal don’t have a relationship with their biological father thus fatherlessness becomes another key topic the novel grapples with.
Yet another plague facing many South African households, Mazibuko sharply integrates the possible causes of this persistent issue and the effects on daughters, mothers and grandmothers, particularly in black communities.
“As much as Fabrics of Love is told through the lens of the women in the Ntoi family, it is about the men in their lives too,” Mazibuko says.
During her varsity days, she was perplexed when her friends marvelled at her “present father” when he would bring groceries or pick her up at the end of each semester.
“I noticed that, in my own friendship circle, my family was a bit of an anomaly. Most of my friends were not from nuclear families, with some not knowing who their fathers were.
“This took me back to my childhood and I realised that many households in black communities are run by our mothers and grandmothers.”
In Fabrics of Love, Mazibuko wanted to look at the various reasons why this is outside of the typical story of “my father denied my existence”, something she did in Bantu Knots.
Mazibuko says she aimed to explore the traumas faced by both women and men but, more specifically, how men process pain and grief — how this affects their ability to be fully present in the lives of their children and their intimate partners.
The grandfather, Lemohang, for instance, deals with grief and guilt. His first-born son, Seun also has demons he is wrestling with and running away from.
Though often men’s lack of responsibility and empathy is to blame, Mazibuko points out that, at times, men can be unintentionally denied access to their children.
“I also looked at our current socio-economic climate and the environmental factors that rip men away from their families. I looked at our political history that forced men to leave their homes to go find work in the city in order to provide; some men ended up with two families.”
In spite of the pain and horror of family secrets and traumas, Fabrics of Love is a celebration of South African heritage through its setting in Soweto. The novel hosts a myriad seSotho references, from the cover page decorated with seShweshwe fabric imagery to words like tjale and famo music.
“The cultural aspects are important because it is part of our identity as black people. Seshweshwe fabric le tjale, are very significant garments, especially when a woman is grieving or getting married.
“The music we listen to and the food we eat is what brings us together in our homes and in our communities,” Mazibuko says.
Splitting her time between Johannesburg and Cape Town — where she recently earned her master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town — Mazibuko is a firm Sowetan.
“I am a woman who grew up in Soweto, writing about Soweto. I wanted this book to be a celebration of that, showcasing how multifaceted the place and the people are.
“Soweto has its own culture, style, lingo and history. It birthed kwaito music in the Eighties and Nineties.”
She concedes that there is crime in Soweto “but you will also find professionals, academics, artists, le boMme ba Seaparo, women who are deeply rooted in their faith”.
“All of this matters — not just the ugly parts of black communities.”
“For me, personally, I wouldn’t be writing an authentic South African story and leave out the parts that make us who we are, such as our languages, what we eat, how we dress, how we celebrate and mourn and even how we worship.”
Through authentic African narratives and emotional depth, Lebo Mazibuko’s novels resonate with readers across generations.
In this sophomore novel, she cuts from a different fabric in showing an objective picture of how women and men deal with family trauma.
The novel will hopefully inspire individuals and families to confront the buried elephants in the different rooms of the house and find healing.
“This is the sole motivation behind me writing the sort of stories that I write. I wish I had a safe space to talk and freely express myself growing up. The truth is that we were raised by wounded people who have not completely healed but have instead passed that trauma down onto us.
“My hope is that we can offer each other a safe space to open up but also offer each other grace.”