Hope is like spotting a leopard in the wild – an animal that prefers to hide much of the time.
I've been meaning to ask Kagiso Lesego Molope
I’ve been meaning to ask you is an interview series where Kathryn Mockler invites people to answer questions on being human.
What is your first memory of existing?
Being a baby, alone in a semi-dark room. I’m just waking up from an afternoon nap and I am aware of my mother’s presence and absence. I know she is outside but I also know she doesn’t want me to need her. I know she’s not coming to hold me.
What is your first memory of being creative?
I have no memory of not being creative. I feel there was never a time when I was not creating.
What is your referred emotion to experience?
Hope. It’s so rare to feel hopeful about anything. When I feel a bit of hope I think: There is more to see, discover, build and enjoy. There are many parts of this world and this life that leave me feeling despairing every hour of every day. Hope is like spotting a leopard in the wild – an animal that prefers to hide much of the time.
What is the best or worst dream you ever had?
I once had a dream that I was visited by my warrior ancestors, their faces painted in red war paint. I’ve never had that dream again and I so long for their presence in my life. It was the most beautiful message, finding out that they were claiming me as one of their own!
What do you cherish most about this world?
Kinship. Knowing that there are millions of people around the world who are kin. Those who see our lands as great gifts and treasures, who feel we don’t own the land but the land holds, feeds and guides us. That we those of us whose lands have been destroyed by colonialism are relatives and can hold on to each other.
What would you like to change about this world?
Land borders. They were created for division and profit and they are not even real at all!
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Men are socialized to be sociopaths. They are not brought up in a world that teaches them empathy for women. Never put your whole self in their hands.
Do you believe in ghosts?
So much! So so much! I wish I had one or two who visited regularly and who I could have a close relationship with.
Who would you like to send your love to?
To children in war zones. I was hiding under cars and coughing from tear gas when I was in the first grade. I think someone, somewhere was sending me love and fighting for me to grow up in a safer and kinder world. If I could, in whatever way, I’d send my love to children whose lives are being devastated by state violence. Or any other kind.
What are you working on now?
I had written a collection of short stories about indigenous women’s lives and I was in the middle of editing it when I went to visit South Africa. I decided to go and take a tour of the old prison now a museum at the Constitution Court. So I walked around the prison and the women’s lives, their spirits, were so present and their voices so powerful, that I knew they were calling me to take those experiences out into the world. That’s how I arrived at the character of Kewame, who had been imprisoned in her teens but is now a mother battling ghosts of the past while trying to figure out motherhood. So that’s how the book was born and that’s when it became a novel. I wanted to explore the interior life of a woman warrior feeling lost in the softness required to navigate motherhood.
The book will be published by M&S in January, 2026.
Kagiso Lesego Molope is a San novelist and playwright. She was born and raised under apartheid in South Africa and now lives on the unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinabe territory. She has published four novels, all of which centre the indigenous people of South Africa. She wrote the first play ever produced about Maya Angelou. Her next novel is titled WE INHERIT THE FIRE (McLelland and Stewart, 2026), a story told by a mother who is a former political prisoner, and her daughter who is growing up at a time when she is seeing the freedom her mother fought for become a reality.
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