Cynthia Jele Reflects on Happiness is a Four-Letter Word and Recommends Siphiwo Mahala

Cynthia Jele, regional winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ prize 2011 for best first book, spoke to Commonwealth Writers about her award-winning book, Happiness is a Four-Letter Word.

Jele advises aspiring writers about the process of publishing a novel. She says rejection is part of the process and that you must learn from your mistakes. In answer to the question of what we should be reading, Jele recommends Téa Obreht’s, The Tiger’s Wife, To See the Mountain and Other Stories and Siphiwo Mahala‘s African Delights:

Did you start off by writing short stories and develop your writing from
there? Or did you start with a novel?

I started my writing career with short stories. Happiness is a Four-Letter Word
follows a similar format as it’s made up of four distinct stories woven into one.

How do you keep going when you reach a block with your book? What
inspires you to find ways round the problem?

With Happiness is a Four-Letter Word it was easier to deal with the ‘block’
because the book is really made up of four interlinked stories. Each time I
struggled with one character’s storyline, I simply picked another character and
started a new story.

• Complete article: Commonwealth Writers

Book details

• Happiness is a Four-Letter Word by Cynthia Jele
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780795702952
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Scribd.com book preview:

Happiness is a Four-Letter Word

• Not loading? View in the Little White Bakkie e-books store

Did you like this article?

Share it

Print this article

Email this article