Bitches’ Brew

By Nontsikelelo Qokela

Title: Bitches’ Brew (2006)
Author: Fred Khumalo (A joint winner of the European Union Literary Award 2005).
Publisher: Jacanna
Genre: Fiction

For those with an appreciation for character development “Bitches’ Brew” might be their kind of read. Fred does exceptionally well in expanding the story line of the two main characters; that is, Zakes and Lettie as evidence behind the cliche “true love never dies”. Fred is in no hurry and writes as though his story depends on every single word he jots down.

However, at some point his efforts to be elaborate comes across as too lengthy, somewhat boring and ends up defeating the aim of suspense (it leaves one feeling as though he just used words in order to reach a certain number of chapters for the sake of his compilation in order to prove his journalistic and editorial skills).

Having said that, he is not at all that bad. After all, the story manages to carry the theme from the first chapter up to last one. The first and last chapter tie together well, but in between the story reads like a long vomit of words (probably because if he would have went straight to the point then the book would have not made it to thirty nine chapters and probably not have it categorized as a novel).