The Courage to Confront Painful Narratives: A Dialogue with Laone J. Mangwa
THE COURAGE TO CONFRONT PAINFUL NARRATIVES
A DIALOGUE WITH LAONE J. MANGWA
Laone J. Mangwa (Also, LJ Mangwa) is a Motswana creative writer, spoken word poet, copy editor and Applied Business Computing graduate fascinated with how life mimics art, and vice versa.
As a writer, he focuses on finding freedom through the expression of internal experiences that are tough to express verbally. Inspired by the unfolding of everyday life, Laone seeks to bridge the gap between the mundane and the extraordinary, often venturing into the otherworldly.
His work has appeared in the Kalahari Review, IBUA Journal, Petlwana Journal of Creative Literature and the Arts, Love Made in Africa: Our Stories Redefined Anthology, Lọúnlọún and Numen of Story.
He is a 2024 ‘Kwalang: The Writers Kiln’ alumnus and was a Writers Mingle panelist at the 8th African Writers Conference held in Lesotho in 2025. Laone currently reads for The Word’s Faire.
BY NKATEKO MASINGA
This conversation took place between Botswana and South Africa, via email.
Nkateko: Hi, Laone. Happy New Year, and thank you for agreeing to have this conversation with me. You told me that you are in the process of moving. Migration is a prolific topic in creative nonfiction, which I must confess is the genre that endeared me to your work. Are you the type of writer / traveler who documents a journey while it is happening, or do you wait until you are settled in a new place before reflecting on and recollecting your relocation?
Laone: Hi, Nkateko. Compliments of the new season. It is my pleasure. I am excited about our conversation. The idea of the world being my home fascinates me. I find myself leaning more into what that may look like, which hasn’t always been the case. My creative nonfiction work begins when I find myself confronting how the circumstance I am in currently makes me feel, and then how that circumstance makes me feel about the physical place I am in. Therefore, I am inclined to say I document a journey while it is happening. The process of things has always intrigued me, and I believe that has had a huge impact on my reflections and recollections.
Nkateko: I am excited too. The title and development of your piece, A Story About Nothing, reminds me of King Solomon’s assertion that “everything is meaningless”, because you subvert the reader’s expectation to expect nothing by immediately giving them several “somethings” to ponder on. This piece drew me in because of the strong opening and kept me intrigued because your italicisation of key concepts gave me a roadmap to make sense of a lot of thoughts I had but could not fully articulate in my late 20s. Now, years later, in reading your piece I can revisit that version of me and remind her of how concerned she was that her Saturn Return, which took place in the midst of a global pandemic, would be the end of her (she survived, barely).
The cornerstones of my identity that were crumbling to rubble during that phase of my life are all highlighted in your piece: community, compassion, intuition, passion, health. I realise now, as I reflect on that younger iteration of myself, that not only did she not die, but neither did those core ideas she was questioning as she lost friends, fell in and out of love, moved across countries, questioned her career choices, and more. They were revived in a new vessel; the version of me that is here now. For instance, my capacity for compassion has increased exponentially despite experiencing intolerable cruelty because I now know what not to do. I am also quicker to leave any situation that causes me pain and confusion because I am unapologetically protective of my emotional and physical health now.
If you were to have a conversation with the version of you that wrote “A Story About Nothing”, based on those key concepts you were grappling with then, what would you say?
Laone: I’m getting teary-eyed reading your response because I know just how tough that period can get. I’d say, “You’re not crazy, Laone. Yes, things don’t make much sense right now, but have some patience. Yes, you feel alone, out of place, too in your mind. You’re questioning your self worth. It is all part of growth, your growth. Matter of fact, you’re not alone. The help you seek arrives once you open yourself to the possibility of it. One of the best things you can do for yourself now is acknowledge your feelings and emotions. Unclothe yourself of that garment of hardness you wear like a badge of honour. Acknowledge your body. Acknowledge your intuition and your sensitivity as well. These things are interconnected. Don’t ignore the hints from your intuition.”
There’s more. The words have not formed yet. Thank goodness for grace. My Saturn Return taught me plenty about that. Wow! We’ve only just begun and your questions already have me in my feelings, haha.
“Fiction allows us to breathe, through the characters we create, while we are still mustering the courage to confront painful narratives by writing our personal stories.“
Nkateko: Your essay had me in my feelings too, so it’s only fair that we both honour that sentiment. In your poem, Water, Home, water is personified as a mother who speaks words of reassurance and comfort to her child: “This place is safe. You have never been alone. I have always protected and supported you. This abyss is your castle. Welcome home.” There are so many layers to that piece; the sound of the water hitting the rocks in gentle waves as you speak, as well as the visual of the water reaching towards the viewer, are very soothing elements. I want to speak about that piece in the context of what you are saying to the previous version of yourself and say that there is a gentleness there that is encouraging in a world that seems to honour and celebrate a harsher alternative, a toxic masculinity.
I noticed it when I read your latest personal essay, To Be A Man, the title of which works in a similar way to “A Story About Nothing” in that the reader has an idea of what the words mean societally and politically and you approach this inflammatory topic like a cooling agent to a scald: “I magnetized on a different type of manhood — one where the man welcomes the part of him that feels, and merges it with his logical, rational part to create a harmony of working parts, a union, a whole.” I have seen some men express a performative version of healthy masculinity, but in your piece you mention two people: your brother and your spiritual mentor, Vuyi, and how you speak of them leads me to wonder; apart from these two individuals, who else holds you accountable to the standard you have set for yourself, and how important are systems / sources of support and mentorship in your journey towards holistically healthy expressions of masculinity?
Laone: It’s interesting how you’re showing me how every piece connects to the other like pieces of a puzzle. That gentleness is the underlying factor in most of my writing and serves as a reminder, mainly to myself, that I am made up mostly of water, and live on a planet that is made up mostly of water. The sages and mystics of this world describe the cosmos as water. We stay in water as we form into humans till we are born. It nurtures me. It supports me when I need it the most. This is mother. How can I not honour this feminine aspect of myself?! To me, it feels natural to do so, to reconcile these halves so that I am able to move forward with balance and clear sight. Vuyi and my brother held space for me to realise this. To realise that it is okay to do what feels natural to me as long as it does not cause harm to me and/or another individual, whether familiar to me or a stranger. These two, along with some of my other teachers encourage me to interact and be a part of communities of like-minded individuals called “soul tribes.” I have found that such communities are crucial in holding me accountable to what I say I stand for, especially when I slip up. Some family and friends as well. The support comes naturally.
The importance of mentorship goes without saying because our mentors are the people who help in bringing focus to our blindspots. It can be quite a mountain climb trying to do that alone. These elements have helped me a great deal in strengthening my discernment, and constantly refining my perspective in my journey towards holistically healthy expressions of masculinity.
Nkateko: I’m glad that you are able to recognise the golden thread that ties your individual pieces into a cohesive body of work. It is so fulfilling to look back and see how everything fits together, that essentially you are telling one story your entire life, the story of you and all that has contributed to the shaping of your character.
On the topic of water, still, but differently, is your short story, To Sink or To Swim, which was a pleasant surprise to me after reading your nonfiction, as this fictional piece follows a complex female protagonist and demonstrates that world-building is a strong part of your toolkit as a writer. It is interesting that you spoke about water as mother earlier, because in “To Sink or To Swim” you expand on the figure of the mother as a presence within nature by describing Olerato appearing to her husband, Laone, and their child, Peo, as the new moon in the night sky.
In the abovementioned scene, we are shown that Peo, whose name means Seed, is the product of an infinite love: Olerato Laone. Can we talk about the spiritual significance of these names? I am also curious about the subversion of what would have been a mother wound in Peo due to the death of her mother and the separation between her father and her step-mother, Kago. Peo’s closeness to her father, as well as her mother’s omnipresence, seem to be a source of indescribable comfort to her.
Laone: That feeling of fulfilment is heart-warming. A friend of mine read ‘To Be A Man’ and sent me a WhatsApp text saying that my journey is beautiful. Her text was that short, but powerful enough to arouse that sense of fulfilment within me. I often grapple with whether or not to put my thoughts and feelings on paper because it feels like I’m writing (about) the same thing but such messages, and this conversation with you make me realise that sometimes I am a bit hard on myself and denying myself the opportunity to document my journey, to have a track record of my growth. Because writing is a safe space for me, it can help the next person reading my works find the creative avenue they need in their life.
Oh yes, Nkateko. Mother is everywhere. Yet, we still fail to see her.
In Setswana, we have a saying that goes, “Ina lebe seromo,” which loosely translates to, “An unfavorable name breeds an unfavorable character and life.” To us Batswana, it means that a parent must choose a befitting name for a child because they are going to embody the traits of that name as they grow up, and these traits will be visible in everything they say and/or do. As you mentioned, Peo is the product of infinite love. Oddly enough, both Olerato and Laone are names sharing a similar root; divine love, the love of Modimo (God). So, Peo, as the seed, will be the vehicle that spreads that divine, infinite love of Modimo wherever she goes, and especially, embodying it in her own life.
The mother wound is slightly cushioned by Peo’s closeness to her father, and she and Kago still communicating with each other. That comfort that we see, although temporary, helps her do what she needs to do in her life. However, I do feel that, although it exists within Peo, she does not recognise this wound. Nonetheless, the wound persists. It lurks beneath the surface and demands to be dealt with.
Nkateko: Yes. Pain demands to be felt. Denying it only makes matters worse. In The Warmth in Mama’s Room, you speak about your relationship with your own mother. The feelings of anger and resentment expressed in that piece reminded me of how I felt when I started writing the poems in Daughter Wound. I was 29, the same age that my mother had been when she gave birth to me, so I was comparing the trajectory of my life with hers and feeling very misunderstood by her when I needed her guidance during a challenging chapter of my life.
I had just moved back home to recover emotionally after a failed relationship, and when I expressed frustration that she was not being supportive during this difficulty I was facing, she cruelly retorted, “What, do you want me to find you another man?” That statement cut me deeper than anything she had said or done to me previously because I felt so…dirty. It wasn’t about the man. It was about me, her daughter, needing to be comforted, but my pain was being reduced to a longing for a man. I can relate to the search for that warmth that you speak of in your essay, and it still eludes me to this day.
I keep going back to this part:
“My openness to figure out why I felt the need to go to the extreme of what feels like self-sacrifice for her happiness helped me understand why the warmth in her room overrode the warmest of all the rooms in my house.”
In his nonfiction masterclass, Malcolm Gladwell speaks about “the peculiar power of the imperfect puzzle”, and I feel that in writing our personal stories, especially the painful narratives, we try to make sense of the pieces that don’t quite fit together neatly in our lives. Even when we turn to fiction as a means to obscure certain narratives so that the issues we are addressing don’t hit as close to home, the characters we create also seem to be attempting a series of unsolvable puzzles.
Laone: Exactly. Fiction allows us to breathe, through the characters we create, while we are still mustering the courage to confront painful narratives by writing our personal stories. Once the courage arrives, we realise that it is ok to be messy, to not have everything figured out. What matters is our willingness to acknowledge the mess and shine a light on it without judging it. I have found that being honest to myself about how I feel towards a certain situation or certain loved ones may be triggering at first, but it is liberating in the long-term.
Going back to your experience, I am gutted that you had to go through that. I am so sorry. No matter how much we try to understand that parents had to endure hardships to survive in this life, and to provide for us, sometimes it makes little sense that your own parent fails to extend comfort, understanding, guidance and love to you, their child, as though you are a stranger. We end up being the ones carrying ourselves and our parents when they should be the ones carrying us in our times of need. The section you quoted from my essay is my attempt at accepting this imperfect, unsolvable puzzle of mother-son dynamics and whether or not there is any power I can derive from it.
Nkateko: Would you then say that your fictional characters have helped you to make sense of your own emotional and mental landscapes? I noticed that in The F Word, the protagonist, Thato, encounters various challenges that severely impact her mental health and that she attempts to deal with them in ways that are not necessarily acceptable in society’s eyes. In many ways, she is similar to Peo, in that they pursue the same methods of self-harm. However, Thato’s story took several turns that left me confused. I found myself asking why she immediately confronted Richard when she found out about the syndicate. Why didn’t she wait, back up all of the evidence, and then later expose him?
It took me a second read, and then a third, to really understand the depth of the trauma she was going through, and that she had no allies, whether familial or institutional. The police were involved, and Naledi was not particularly helpful besides lending an ear. Thato lost her entire family at the hands of a man she had trusted. I honestly don’t know how I would have dealt with that, and I understand why she said she wasn’t supposed to be institutionalised. The people who are supposed to be in mental healthcare facilities are enjoying positions of power and wealth while their victims are forced to ingest mind-altering substances, and the people meant to be in prison are instead roaming the streets freely as their victims continue to be mourned by their loved ones.
Laone: Yes. My fictional characters have indeed helped me a great deal in making sense of my own emotional and mental landscapes. They challenge my perspective and outlook on life, they challenge my responses to certain situations, they challenge my imagination, and they challenge me, especially in finding healthy ways to confront those emotions, feelings, and thoughts which are no longer beneficial for me, and can no longer remain hidden within me.
My intention with ‘The F Word’ was to highlight mental health through Thato and why it can no longer be ignored in our society. Many people, young and old, are similar to Thato and Peo. Many people have perished because they felt suffocated, without an outlet for them to breathe through. I had no clue the story would turn out as complex as it did. Thato’s dad was her hero and the events that occurred shattered her. She is confused as well because these events challenge her beliefs, shake her at the very core. On one hand, we are witnessing her pain unfold. On the other hand, the great trauma she has suffered kind of makes her an unreliable narrator. How much of what she is sharing is the truth? What else is she leaving out? She is looking for answers and dealing with everything in her own way.
Sometimes, in life, it feels as if justice remains a pipe dream but we must not forget that the beginning of the downfall of the people who commit such atrocities is their own arrogance.
Nkateko: I agree wholeheartedly. I love that you mention that Thato is an unreliable narrator. It adds a new dimension to the story for me. Hold my wine, I am returning to the story for a fourth read. (Laughs).
In your Ibua Packlight feature, you mention that Busamoya Phodiso Modirwa is a writer who inspires you to continuously improve your writing. I love her work too. Who are your other literary influences, both from Botswana as well as other countries?
Laone: Hahaha. Please do. I would like to know your thoughts after.
Phodiso’s essays are absolutely divine. And she is unafraid to be brutally honest and vulnerable in her works. I am not there yet. Tyler Majaga is another one. He focuses more on fiction but his style of authenticity, simplicity and youthfulness (if I can call it that) drew me in from the first pages of his book Blue Skies in the South: Premise. I have strived to emulate these elements in my own writing since. Rebaone “RoyalBlack” Ramonyadiwa’s pen game is something to write home about. And of course, Kgomotso Mogapi and L.D. Raditladi for rekindling my interest in exploring this vast and rich Setswana culture and tradition of mine.
Internationally, I would say Rebecca Beardsall who writes on belonging and becoming. Dambisa Moyo found her way into my life when I was embroiled in African history and decolonization with her book Dead Aid. W.E.B Du Bois spoke to me in The Souls Of Black Folk. Yogananda is another influence. Mantak Chia as well. In my twenties, I consumed plenty of religious texts, eschatology, philosophy and mythology, from The Zohar, and The Kabbalah to Gnosticism and The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Most of my current reading is stories from various writers in various literary magazines such as Valerie Chatindo who seldom filters or dilutes her words. Itumeleng Daniel Mothoagae’s research paper on the translation of the Bible into Setswana also had an impact on my view of, and how I interacted with, this entity called Modimo, especially in my writing.
Nkateko: If the honesty you have displayed in your non-fiction up to this point is not “brutal” by your standards, then I need to start preparing myself for what your future work is going to do to my emotional state.
Thank you for sharing your writing influences, I am definitely adding these authors to my list. Thank you also for sharing your heart with me and our readers; it has been my greatest honour to begin the new year in conversation with you.
Laone: I am flattered. You should see me blushing right now. Funny enough, it’s scary displaying any kind of honesty at first. But once you start, the rest is history as they say. So I can definitely promise you that that honesty will be maintained in my future work.
You’re welcome, Nkateko. I am truly grateful for our conversation, and for you for overcoming the hurdles you did to reach this point in your life. You are amazing! I hope your readers get something out of our conversation.
Photo credit for featured image of Laone J. Mangwa: © Asante-sana Moremi.
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.
Interesting