Mirroring Adversity and the Adolescent Mind: A Dialogue with Onke Mazibuko
MIRRORING ADVERSITY AND THE ADOLESCENT MIND
A DIALOGUE WITH ONKE MAZIBUKO
Onke Mazibuko is a psychologist who has worked in different settings including corporate, nonprofits, schools and tertiary institutions. He has also worked in private practice and as a consultant in youth development and teacher development.
His debut novel, The Second Verse, was released in South Africa in 2022 and was longlisted in the Sunday Times Literary Awards and won the Youth Literature Award in the South African Literary Awards. The novel is scheduled for international release in April 2025 under Catalyst Press.
He holds Master’s degrees in Counselling Psychology and Public Health as well as a PhD in Creative Writing. Onke is an International Visitor’s Leadership Programme fellow, as well as a Canon Collins Trust Scholarship recipient.
BY NKATEKO MASINGA
This conversation took place in South Africa, via email.
Nkateko: Hello, Onke. Thank you so much for agreeing to have this conversation with me. The interaction between Bokang and Mr Knowles at the beginning of The Second Verse affected me. As a person who struggles with major depression, I found it quite triggering and as an empath it took me back to the day I came across Joseph Nana Kwame Awuah-Darko’s The Last Supper Project. I know better than to conflate suicide with assisted euthanasia, but Bokang makes a reference to “suicide clinics” that has me thinking that perhaps he has a rose-tinted view on the outcomes of assisted death. He says,
“Imagine if for a hundred bucks, a person could go to a clinic and be put down peacefully.
No mess. No trauma. Perfect for the family . . .”
Do you perceive Bokang’s perspective as a consequence of youth? While reading, I kept thinking that needs to get older and he will see things differently. At the same time, young people are witnessing a society ravaged by wars, pandemics and the effects of late-stage capitalism, so it is a difficult conversation to have. The backstory behind The Fray’s “How to Save a Life” comes to mind. I find myself having the same fears for Bokang at the beginning of the book as those I have for the young person pursuing The Last Supper Project, a sort of misplaced hope that life will get better and I need them to see it.
Onke: Hi, Nkateko. Thank you too for the opportunity to engage in a conversation with you. Thank you also for taking the time to read The Second Verse and engage with it so reflectively. When I wrote this story I was approaching forty and reflecting quite a lot about my teenage years. Specifically, I was asking myself if I ever experienced depression and suicidal thoughts and I wanted to understand how I navigated that difficult time in my life. Back in the 90’s, when I was a teenager, psychological concepts like depression and suicide were not openly discussed in the school I attended, at home or even in the general community. Certainly not as much as these concepts are discussed today. Since I am a psychologist, I wanted to do a deep dive into myself and society and understand what was so different then as compared to now.
Working with young people today has shown me that psychological concepts are more openly discussed but that doesn’t mean anything is easier now about being a teenager as it was back in my day. So when I started writing this story, I wanted firstly for adults to enjoy it while reflecting on their own upbringing and secondly I wanted today’s teenagers to enjoy it and contemplate their adulthood.
For me, Bokang is a highly disturbed young man who needs guidance and the kind of maturity that only life experience can provide. I wanted that to be clear from the first page. I believe his perspective is not only one of being a young person but also one who has been forced to grow up too quickly. In some ways he tries to grapple with ideas that are beyond his age, to somehow prove to himself and the world that he is mature, but in many ways his faulty thinking is exposed. During the writing process I was very conscious of creating an unreliable narrator, but one that the reader can only but identify with and find a way to support him despite the outrageous things he thinks.
One of the things that continues to trouble me about suicide is that the person experiencing these thoughts often believes that they are alone or have no other alternative. What often happens once the person has passed on is that those who cared are left disillusioned giving the idea that the person was perhaps not as alone as they thought. At the same time, suicidal thoughts are common, just as is depression and the feeling of being excruciatingly lonely. I sometimes think we could build a community around people experiencing these thoughts and feelings and in that way provide each other with the support that makes us believe life is worth living.
” I was using my own memories while tapping into the mind and heart of a teenager today.”
I do often fear for young people today because of the reality they live in. I believe it is psychologically more taxing. The fact that psychological concepts are more openly discussed today as compared to the 90’s is a double edged blade. On the one hand, it means young people can talk about their experiences and find the correct channels in seeking help. On the other hand, however, I do also believe that there is such a thing as over-psychologising things, which leads to people believing they are more frail than they actually are. I believe one way of helping young people face today’s world – and myself to face the fears I have for them – is to help them believe that they will find the solutions for this world that they live in and I barely understand from my adult perspective.
I would like to believe adults around me once upon a time when I was a teenager had realistic fears for me and my generation. But we found a way, especially when we were guided by those who instilled belief in us. Although Bokang comes across as deeply troubled, I have plenty of hope in him to figure out his way, just as long as he identifies those who believe in him and his abilities to problem solve in a complex world.
Nkateko: Your background in psychology comes through very strongly in how you have crafted the characters in this book, particularly Bokang, as we see the world through his eyes. It is also evident in the depth of the interactions between Bokang and his family and friends, and even a few teachers who he knows are trustworthy and kind. I think that we sometimes take for granted that teenagers know who is safe to talk to and who is not, and I remember beginning to blatantly lie to the school psychologist when I found out that she was sharing what I told her with my Life Orientation teacher at my first high school. Their argument was that the rules of confidentiality did not apply to me as I was a minor, and I found myself feeling very betrayed. I eventually changed schools and fortunately I thrived in my new environment but I will never forget that feeling of having my boundaries violated by people I thought I could trust. I became more guarded and less trusting after that.
I agree that Bokang is an unreliable narrator, but I also think that we meet him in a place where he has absolutely no reason to trust anyone in his life, let alone us as readers. I know I am breaking the proverbial fourth wall here, but why should he trust me when the other adults in his life keep letting him down? He feels an obligation to show up for his younger siblings and his friends while meeting the endless expectations of the adults who claim to be trying to help him while simultaneously not listening to what he has to say. It’s a lot, and I am so tired of the narrative that only people whose frontal lobes have fully developed can be trusted to make the right decisions. If that is the case, then why do we choose our career paths at the age of eighteen and not twenty-five? Teenagers are intelligent and perceptive, and the deep-dive into Bokang’s mind is reminding me of that.
You say that you were approaching forty when you began reflecting on your teenage years, so I am curious about the conversations you needed to have with the younger versions of yourself in order to bring Bokang (and perhaps even Izzie and Sizwe) to life, especially with how authentic and vulnerable the children are in their familial interactions. When Ernest came home, I was ready to throw a heavy object at him because at that point I was already protective of those kids, and I knew his arrival, although anticipated by the entire family, would cause a shift in how they navigated their home.
Onke: I can relate with your experiences with a school psychologist. I never made use of one because at our school the psychologist was also one of the deputies. It didn’t make sense to approach that adult who would obviously side with the school over your wellbeing as a student. Funny enough I now work in an all girls’ private school as the Director of Transformation, Diversity and Inclusion. Some of the students choose to come to me for ‘a quick chat’ rather than go to the school psychologist because there is still that mistrust of this kind of position. I have noticed that teenagers these days really need an adult they can talk to without being told what to do. So teachers and parents don’t often work for teenagers as adults they can talk to. I go out of my way to listen more and speak less.
One of my greatest learning curves has been through mentoring a young lady since her grade 8 year up until now in her fourth year in university. Many of the scenes I wrote about Bokang and Nokwanda were based not only on my own stories of unrequited love but also witnessing my mentee stringing along her best friend who was clearly in love with her. I would often discuss with her parts of the story I was writing as well as what was happening in her life. In a way, I was using my own memories while tapping into the mind and heart of a teenager today. When the story was ready for publication, this mentee of mine couldn’t finish reading the story because she saw herself differently. It was too painful to see what she had done to her best friend. It was only in more recent times, since she entered her twenties, that she has been able to finish the novel and comment positively about her own experiences. Teenagers can really be strong minded. They can also forget that adults were once teenagers themselves and can be a great source of learning.
This story was greatly influenced by The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. This was a story I had to read for English setwork in grade 11. When I first read the story, I hated it and couldn’t understand the protagonist and narrator. About three years later, I dropped out of university in second year and when I returned home I found the same copy of this book on my shelf at home. I reread it out of boredom and I was amazed at how I identified with the protagonist. It felt like I had written the story. This also made me see how much I had grown emotionally. More than a decade later I was in my thirties and I read the book again. Once again I was blown away by how I was now reading it for a third time and experiencing it on a different level. That’s when I knew I wanted to tell the kind of story that echoes to the inner child as well as the inner adult.
I was really intrigued by human development. Looking at my own journey, I couldn’t believe how much I had grown and I also realised how little I knew about myself when I was younger. I also think it is insane that teenagers are expected to know themselves and their desired career at such a young age and in the kind of world that has so many options laid out before them. In working with young people I try to encourage them to understand that they can do something and finish it but it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s who they will be their entire life.
I have had some readers tell me that they think Ernest is the main character of the story or at least the unsung hero in some ways. I know that in every story I have ever enjoyed reading or watching, I have always loved the villain. This is not to say I necessarily root for the villain over the hero, but I recognise that in a good story the hero deserves a worthy opponent. Ernest brings out the good and the bad out of Bokang, creates opportunities for him while also placing obstacles in his path. This character I wrote from personal experience. I had a father that could be as much of a tyrant as he could be a nurturer and it was confusing growing up. Even after he passed away, he continued to influence my growth as I grappled with the memories of him I had in my mind.
In coming up with the character of Bokang and drawing up his family constellation I had to think about the different roles I have played in my family. So technically I am the last born of three but my older sister’s first child is thirteen years younger than me and her second child is twenty-four years younger than me. My nephew and niece have lived with us at different stages of their lives and so that has often cast me into the middle child role. Then as I entered my thirties I found that I often had to take on first born responsibilities because my older siblings were not carrying their weight. So it was interesting writing Bokang as the first born who laments the days when he was an only child. Those family dynamics impact us in significant ways even when we are adults and we never quite outgrow them.
Nkateko: I am so glad that you mentioned Nokwanda, because her first interaction with Bokang was such a meet-cute! I loved that entire scene, from the payphone (the telephone book and phone card references in the book were nostalgic balm for my 90s soul!) to their witty banter. It is such a relatable and memorable induction, rivaled in intensity only by how it ended. In high school, I had a relationship with an older boy who left me convinced that young love was the devil’s handiwork. I adored him, only to find out that he had only asked me out because of a bet he lost (laughs). Years later, when he was apologising for leading me on for so long, he admitted that he had used me as a “crutch” during a time when his life lacked balance. If you ask me now what I remember about him, I would say it’s how we met, followed by other sweet moments and then and only then, his fall from (my) grace. Eternally in that order. What I mean to say is, thank you for giving us an adorable how-they-met story for those two. Regardless of how it ended, the magic of the initial spark remains steadfast for me.
Onke: I’m glad that the characters and story have taken you down memory lane. That was my intention when writing the book: to get older people to reflect back on their younger years and to get younger people to think forwards about how their decisions in the present could impact their future selves.
My teenage years were characterised by unrequited love. I was always the boy who was kept in the friend zone. I realise now of course that I am much older, that those girls were never the right ones for me. I had a Twilight Zone moment a couple of years ago when I first started working in this school and I bumped into one of the parents in the parking lot and it turned out to be the woman that the Nokwanda character is based on. It was such a surreal moment to see this person stepping out of her Porsche (she dates celebrities now) and wonder to myself why I would ever be attracted to such a person, who showed signs of being self-absorbed even as a teenager.
Time truly is a teacher and I try to instill this belief in teenagers now. I tell them that no matter what you are going through, tell yourself that it won’t be this way forever. School is unfair in a way because it is like living in a fish tank where your reality and perception are limited. Yet five years in a young person’s life is a long period that drags by slowly, making it hard for a teenager to believe that what they are going through might one day end.
It saddens me that today’s teenagers seem afraid to make mistakes. They have this idea that everything they try must be perfect, including relationships. I am not so sure that teenagers should be trying to find the love of their life now, instead they should be experimenting and learning from the intimate interactions that are fleeting and don’t last. But too often they take rejection as an indictment on themselves. I suppose we all do at that age but for them in these days of social media it is kind of worse.
The setting of the story, in terms of time period, was one I contemplated quite a bit. Originally I wanted to tell a story set in today’s world, however, I decided I didn’t want social media to be an element of this story. I knew I couldn’t tell a story about teenagers in today’s world without mentioning social media. It is a world unfamiliar to me and I was not willing to go down that rabbit hole of research. So it felt safer to go into a teenage world I better understand. At the same time though I wanted to see if today’s teenagers could read a story set in a world unfamiliar to them and still relate with the story. From the feedback I have received this was a success. I guess a universal story is a universal story regardless of where it is written.
It was a joy recreating the 90’s setting for this story, just as it was creating the characters. As a psychologist I go out of my way to make the characters real and really get them to be complex. I treat the setting as a character as well. Bringing everything together in the different scenes is an absolute joy. Growing up watching movies made me want to write scenes that are as visual as a movie.
Nkateko: Earlier, you spoke about The Catcher in the Rye being one of your literary influences. Was your decision to employ first-person narration a result of this influence? There are obvious limitations with any narrative point of view, but I think that Holden and Bokang are both interesting characters because they speak with the humour and cynicism of youth, which is so fun to read because it amplifies the forced evictions of our own teenage colloquialisms. I have a sister who is a decade younger than me and half the time I need her to translate the things she says to me because Gen Z language is constantly changing. At the same time, she listens to 90s hip hop and loves the fashion of that time. So I can definitely see why your book has a universal appeal; we all have some form of historical nostalgia.
Did you have any influences from other art forms during the conceptualisation and writing of The Second Verse? Music? Movies? You mentioned that you grew up watching movies, so I am curious about which genres you enjoyed? Did you revisit any of those movies during the period that you were reflecting on your childhood?
Onke: The decision to employ the first person narrative was influenced by my background in psychology. I really enjoy getting into the head of a character and taking the reader for a ride. I did enjoy The Catcher in the Rye especially the cynical humour you mention. I was also deliberate about Bokang’s humour. This aspect of the story was greatly influenced by stand up comedians, especially from the US. Dave Chapelle is probably one of my favourite entertainers. In honing my writing craft I enjoy watching stand up comedians and learning from them. I employ their strategies when doing public speaking and when writing. It isn’t only about the detail of storytelling and creating great jokes that I am interested in, but also how casually they deliver their content and also how they handle really painful life experiences with laughter. There is an intelligence there that I respect and I continue to learn from.
I tried different voices in writing this story. First it was written how I naturally speak, then I changed it to a more college boy voice (all boys’ school), then to heavy hip-hop slang like I used to speak with my friends, then I decided to find the middle ground between the latter two. It was experimenting that I really enjoyed. I find I do that with other stories I have written. I don’t mind rewriting a story just to play around with the language. In my current manuscript I am telling a story about boarding school in the Natal Midlands during the nineties and all the characters have British accents. I know that in the rewrites I will find the happy middle ground after playing with the accents and the slang and trying to figure out what feels right.
Apart from stand-up comedy my stories are also influenced by movies. Funny enough it is science fiction which I enjoy and somehow influences my writing even though I am not writing in that genre. I appreciate the themes in science fiction. The Matrix, to this day, is my favourite movie because of the message it has around finding your inner power, overcoming oppression and knowing what is happening around you.
Nkateko: I keep thinking about Bokang’s ‘therapy as boxing’ analogy and how it summarises my thoughts about the glimpse I got of Bokang’s life. There were times where I felt as if he was using all his might to get through the situations he faced, and at other times I felt that he was running away from everything. Jabs and deflections. Strength and speed work. We are in the ring all year long, and life throws punches all year long.
I feel as if The Second Verse comes full circle in many ways. I am not often content with endings, but this was one that felt right, unrushed and open enough to allow the reader’s imagination to decide what happens next. I loved Senzo’s music analogy and how it helped Bokang reframe his misfortunes as a setup for a strong comeback. I started out so worried about these kids, but I left feeling as if the best was yet to come, for all of them.
Thank you again for having this conversation with me, Onke. It has been an honour to take a stroll through the garden of your mind, as well as Bokang’s.
Onke: Thank you, Nkateko for engaging with this story on this level. It is always humbling to hear how a story I have written has engaged another person. The writing process can be so lonely and when a project is done, there is no way of knowing what it means to others until they engage with it and give you feedback. So again, I thank you.
I am also a sucker for happy endings. I don’t believe in having them just for the sake of them but instead crafting them in such a way that makes sense to the whole narrative. That’s why I spend so much time on them. Often, like with this story, I write different endings, constantly working on what feels like the perfect ending. I feel this one was one of them because I have attempted to write sequels to this story – always trying a new angle – and as of now I have not yet come up with the perfect one. The most recent idea is to make the second book about Israel as a second year university drop out and the third book about Sizwe as a graduate falling in love for the first time. The idea is to make the three books kind of like siblings related to each other, focused on different life periods but exploring the dynamics that play out in a family through different time periods. Ernest’s influence on all his children will be a common theme. I’ll see how the writing goes. Whatever happens I feel the story of Bokang has been handled with integrity and I would hope anyone who reads it feels good by the end. There is hope for all of us even in the most dire situations.
I think my life has been characterised by constant bouncing back from adversity. That’s why I like Senzo’s analogy and the title of the book. Twice I have dropped out of university and yet I have two masters’ degrees and a PhD. I’ve had many heartbreaks and yet I’m in a stable and enduring relationship. I have lost many friends but I continue to make new ones. I always have hope and for me that is a good thing.
Nkateko: The title is absolutely brilliant! We have a lot to thank Bokang for, but we really need to give Senzo his flowers for that analogy.
Your resilient spirit and accomplishments are incredibly inspiring. Thank you again for this wonderful conversation, Onke. I wish you the very best going forward.
Nkateko Masinga is an award-winning South African writer whose poetry has been translated into French, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada and Romanian. Her latest book, Daughter Wound, was published by UK publisher Hazel Press in April 2024 and was named Book of the Week at the London Review Bookshop in the first week of its release.
