This Thing Called the Future

by J.L. Powers

Overview

Fourteen-year-old Khosi yearns for this thing called the future— something better than sickness and superstition in a shanty town. Does she want too much? A stunning YA coming-of-age story set in post-apartheid South Africa.

Khosi lives with her beloved grandmother, her little sister, and her weekend mother in a matchbox house on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. In this shantytown, it seems like somebody is dying all the time. Billboards everywhere warn of the disease of the day. When Khosi's mother turns sick, she refuses any care. No traditional Zulu medicine. When Khosi tries to take her mother to a western doctor, her mother tells her not to bother and to stay in school. Only education will save Khosi and her sister from the poverty and ignorance of the old Zulu ways.

School, though, is not bad. There is a boy her own age there, Little Man Ncobo, and she loves his blue-black lips and the color of his skin, so much darker than her own. But he mocks her when a witch's curse and a neighbor's accusations send her scrambling off to the sangoma's hut in search of a healing potion. She doesn't know what it is that makes the blood come up from her choking lungs. Witchcraft? A curse? AIDS? What must she do to save her mother from wasting before their eyes?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933693958
Publisher:	Lee & Low Books
Publication date:	04/12/2011
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	710L (what's this?)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

J.L. Powers is a novelist and scholar. Her recent novel This Thing Called the Future is a coming of age story set in post-Apartheid South Africa. Her previous anthology was Labor Pains and Birth Stories. She holds master's degrees in African History from State University of New York-Albany and Stanford University, and won a Fulbright-Hayes to study Zulu in South Africa, and served as a visiting scholar in Stanford's African Studies Department in 2008 and 2009. She lives in San Francisco's Bay area.

What People are Saying About This

Sarah Ellis

“J.L. Powers takes the challenges and sorrows of contemporary South Africa and renders them powerfully immediate in the character of Khosi, a girl negotiating coming of age in her post-apartheid, AIDS-ravaged country. Provocative, unvarnished, loving.” –Sarah Ellis, professor in the Vermont College MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and reviewer for The Horn Book and the New York Times.

Deborah Ellis

"From the first words we are drawn into Khosi's world. A great achievement by J.L. Powers."—Deborah Ellis, author of The Breadwinner Trilogy

From the Publisher

“Through the eyes of a conflicted teenager, Powers (The Confessional) composes a compelling, often harrowing portrait of a struggling country, where old beliefs and rituals still have power, but can’t erase the problems of the present. Readers will be fully invested in Khosi’s efforts to secure a better future.” Publisher’s Weekly, March 21, 2011

Editorial Reviews

"This novel offers an intimate glimpse into the challenges of being a contemporary teenage girl in South Africa."— Chicago Tribune

"This novel takes a loving, clear-eyed look at the clash of old and new through the experience of one appealing teenager… A compassionate and moving window on a harsh world." — Kirkus Reviews

"… a compelling, often harrowing portrait of a struggling country, where old beliefs and rituals still have power, but can’t erase the problems of the present. Readers will be fully invested in Khosi’s efforts to secure a better future." — Publishers Weekly

"This is a fascinating glimpse into a worldview that, while foreign to many readers, is made plausible through Khosi’s practical and conflicted perspective."— The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review

"Despite pervasive HIV and the specter of rape, as well as the restrictions on girls’ freedom that are her society’s only response, Khosi manages to find her power, refuse to be a victim, and carve out a future for herself that embraces both the modern and the traditional."— The Horn Book Magazine

"This is a powerfully gripping, eye-opening novel that doesn’t pull any punches, and readers will long remember Khosi and the trials and tribulations facing South Africans as they venture forth into the modern world while desperately holding onto their heritage."— School Library Journal

"…the tense story builds skillfully to an anguished revelation readers will want to discuss."— Booklist

"Magic and science are woven together in this often stark story of AIDS and unrelenting poverty."— VOYA

"This is a poignant story about a young woman struggling to ensure her family's security although many factors are working against them."— Children's Literature

"Powers seamlessly combines contemporary realism with the supernatural in this powerful and singular novel."— Timesunion.com

"Khosi’s story is not only an everywoman story of a girl growing up, it is an allegory of all the many challenges facing South Africa and its people.
"— OutSmart Magazine

"Bright and responsible, Khosi is growing up with her mother, grandmother and younger sister in a community devastated by AIDS and gangsters. She's torn between traditional beliefs and modern ambitions—and Powers, writing her second novel, makes it clear that Khosi's circumstances permit no facile answers."— Stanford Alumni Magazine

" This Thing Called the Future may deal with bleak topics, but there is hope and triumph, too. As Khosi looks toward that mysterious thing called the future, she believes she can make hers beautiful despite the sorrow around her."— Christian Science Monitor

"Khosi's heartbreaking and redemptive coming-of-age story compels us to face the demons within cultural superstitions and choose a future that can be changed."— Ann Angel, author of Janis Joplin:Rise Up Singing

"In a literary landscape cluttered with the imagined powers of the paranormal, This Thing Called the Future introduces us to the reality that supernatural strength exists here and now. Gripping, honest, and eye-opening, this book will change the way you see the world."— Emily Wing Smith, author of The Way He Lived and Back When You Were Easier to Love

"J.L. Powers takes the challenges and sorrows of contemporary South Africa and renders them powerfully immediate in the character of Khosi, a girl negotiating coming of age in her post-apartheid, AIDS-ravaged country. Provocative, unvarnished, loving." — Sarah Ellis, author of Odd Man Out and The Several Lives of Orphan Jack

"Basing her story on detailed research, Powers gets into the shoes of her imagined protagonist and sensitively explores her perceptions. This is a wonderful book with which to think about contemporary South Africa - about the trials of everyday life, about dreams, witchcraft, physical danger, adolescent love, and not least about ambition."— William Beinart, author of Twentieth-Century South Africa

"A fascinating look at life in a shanty town in present day South Africa."— The 4:00 Book Hook

"…the research J.L. Powers did is evident in every detail.This book offers a daunting, sincere, and profoundly human view of what’s happening on the other side of the globe." — Teen Voices

From the Publisher

Set in an impoverished South African shantytown where post-Apartheid freedom is overshadowed by rampant AIDS and intractable poverty, this novel takes a loving, clear-eyed look at the clash of old and new through the experience of one appealing teenager. Khosi, 14, lives in an all-female household with her sister, Zi, and frail grandmother, Gogo, subsisting on Gogo's pension and Mama's salary as a teacher in the city (she comes home on weekends). Everyone in Khosi's world is poor. Where the struggle to survive is all-consuming, family loyalty trumps community. Clashes between Zulu customs and contemporary values further erode cultural ties and divide families. A scholarship student, Khosi loves science, but getting to school means dodging gangs and rapists hunting AIDS-free virgins. After a witch curses Khosi's family and Mama falls ill, Khosi and Gogo seek aid from a traditional Zulu healer, which Mama dismisses as superstition while fear and poverty keep her from accessing modern medicine. As stresses mount, Khosi's ancestors speak, offering her guidance. Supported by them, her family and classmate Little Man, Khosi vows to create a better future by synthesizing old and new ways, yet the obstacles she faces—some inherited, others newly acquired—are staggering. A compassionate and moving window on a harsh world. (glossary of Zulu words) (Paranormal fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews