Mohale Mashigo’s The Yearning follows a young woman in Cape Town whose quiet life is shaken when buried memories and ancestral forces rise to the surface. Picture Credits: Amazon Kdp
By Duncan Mnisi
Book Review – The Yearning by Mohale Mashigo is a powerful South African novel that explores memory, pain, and the long shadow cast by the past. It follows Marubini, a young woman living what appears to be an ideal life in Cape Town. She works on a wine farm, enjoys the company of friends, and seems unburdened by worry. Yet beneath this calm surface lies something dark, unresolved, and quietly waiting.
The novel poses difficult questions: How long do emotional scars take to heal? Do they ever heal at all if they are ignored? For Marubini, trying to forget her past offers no protection. Instead, buried wounds deepen until they demand to be confronted.
Acclaimed author Zakes Mda describes the book as “a bewitching addition to the current South African literary boom,” praising Mashigo’s “charming lucidity, disarming characterisation, subversive wisdom and subtle humour.” This praise is well deserved. Mashigo’s writing is gentle and clear, yet layered with emotional depth and meaning.
One of the novel’s greatest strengths is how it weaves together the modern and the traditional. Marubini’s urban life collides with ancestral beliefs and spiritual forces she cannot escape. Mashigo presents African spirituality not as outdated or symbolic, but as living, powerful, and demanding respect.
The story also speaks to generational trauma. Marubini’s pain is not hers alone; it is inherited through family history and long-held silence. In a country like South Africa, where unresolved personal and historical wounds persist, this theme resonates deeply.
At its heart, The Yearning is a story about courage — the bravery required to face buried truths. Mashigo offers no easy answers, only reflection. The result is a haunting, thoughtful novel that lingers long after the final page and firmly establishes her as one of South Africa’s most important contemporary literary voices.
