Dudu Busani-Dube

“AboutDudu Busani Dube”

“It takes guts, patience and a lot of hard work. I think anyone who is passionate about writing and wants to own and be in control of their creativity can do it. I used my own money to publish, which was risky because I wasn’t sure how well my book was going to do. It took a while before the money I made from book sales was actual profit. But I’m at a great place now”

“There are things that you can’t translate into English, if you tried the sentence would be completely flat”

“I have rejected many ‘influencer’ deals, turned down many celebrity event invitations (not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I know my limits and complications”

“If the assumption that I’m influential is true, then that’s the one issue I’m willing to speak about, openly and honestly.”

“I’m the most known person who isn’t a celebrity”

“Sometimes I don't even like or agree with her, but I can't change her or tame her just because I'm not happy with her decisions.”

“The truth is I would have been fine i it had flopped, because at that time I wasn't as invested as I am now in the business.”

“In order to create a culture of reading among children, we need to make books accessible to them and write stories they can relate to”

“Reading opens one’s mind to different things and different worlds and expands horizons”

“It is our responsibility as storytellers to promote a reading culture to communities, many of which are marginalised.”

“It’s very difficult to adapt a book into a film, especially a fictional book where I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do with the characters.”

“The fact that you have a gift that is different from a lot of people… that you can create things and the understanding of the value of that and what it can do for you. You need to understand what intellectual property is. Artists and creators, rarely ever consult an intellectual property attorney or ask questions or some of them don’t even know that those exist. So, you need to have that information. The research and the knowledge and protecting what you have created, there are ways to protect what you do”

“I'd rather someone talk to me about the characters in my books than my style of writing. I wanted it to appeal to someone on a social grant, to someone in an executive office.”

“I don't think anything inspires creativity for me. I just wanted to write a story about black people.”

“So many things have come out of my writing journey and the risk I took to publish myself. The best one is the growing fearlessness about telling our stories as they are and using familiar language to tell them.”

“It is them — because they are still buying my books and hyping them even five years later — who motivate me to continue writing”

“The stories I write come from being a black woman in South Africa, the friendships and relationships I have had, families and what we perceive as love”

“I don’t have a sacred writing space, but I do write better after midnight, when I’m surrounded by creative energy”

“at no point in my life did I sit down in a garden and inhale fresh air, watch flowers blooming under the blue sky and become inspired to write about broken men and the women who try to fix them”