Unathi Slasha

Unathi Slasha is a South African writer and literary scholar from Despatch, Port Elizabeth, known for reimagining and subverting Nguni folklore. He describes his work as exploring “The Unlanguaged World,” focusing on aspects of Black life that resist conventional literary language.

His publications include the novella Jah Hills and the chapbook Much with the Dead & Mum with the Dying, or: Rigidities of Rationalism, Camaraderie Criticism & Contemporary South African Literature. His creative work often blends folklore, philosophy, and social commentary, and appears in a range of literary journals such as New Coin, Ntinga, AERODOME, and Badilisha Poetry X-Change.

In 2026, Slasha won the Iskanchi Book Prize for his novel The Hollow Sound of Lightweight Bodies, which follows Mxabanisi Bulawayo, a young crematorium technician and amateur obituarist whose life is transformed by an encounter with the mythic Baba Bouka. The book fuses fantasy, gossip, grief, and folklore while confronting violence, corruption, and death without the cushion of political correctness.

Alongside his fiction and poetry, Slasha is an active polemicist and critic, contributing essays on contemporary South African literature and indigenous narratives to outlets such as New Contrast, Mail & Guardian, herri, TYHINI, and The New Orleans Review, cementing his role as a significant and provocative voice in African letters.