I can’t say I was rejected by the industry, but I still believe that if I had tried, I would have been rejected. The JRB: Why did you decide to self-publish your books? Was it that you couldn’t get a publisher willing to take your work on, or was it that you found trade publishers were not a good fit for what you wanted to achieve?ĭudu Busani-Dube: I only started speaking with publishers after my books were already doing well. I was not known for doing homework and, also, I was the only one given the assignment in my class. I ended up writing about being a gangster who robbed people at night under a specific streetlight. I didn’t even know it was good until she made a big fuss about it and read it in every class. Just a ‘write a story in the first person’ brief, and up to today I still maintain she asked me because she thought I wasn’t going to do it. What was that story about?ĭudu Busani-Dube: I wasn’t given a specific topic. Jennifer Malec for The JRB: You’ve mentioned that you first realised you had a talent for storytelling when one of your stories made you famous in high school. Fans eagerly await the fourth and final book in the Hlomu series.īusani-Dube chatted to The JRB about her extraordinary publishing journey, her maverick approach to storytelling, her new book, and her plans for the Hlomu series.

Now, Busani-Dube is one of the few self-published authors to claim bestseller status in South Africa. She decided to self-publish, and after a few false starts, she began selling books from the boot of her car. Instead of helping her, they were instantly hooked, and begged her to continue the story. It rocketed to the number one spot at Exclusive Books within days of its release earlier this month.īusani-Dube started writing Hlomu the Wife in 2015, and shared excerpts with friends, asking them for help in editing the book. Her Hlomu series, comprising Hlomu the Wife, Zandile the Resolute and Naledi His Love, has sold tens of thousands of copies, and her new book, the standalone title Zulu Wedding, which was released last week, has been selling out as soon as it touches the shelves. Dudu Busani-Dube, author of the wildly popular Hlomu series, chats to The JRB Editor Jennifer Malec.ĭudu Busani-Dube is a publishing phenomenon.

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