Overview
Shortlisted for The Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation
Made into a movie featuring some of South Africa’s leading actors and released during the World Cup Themba -a boy called hope, won several awards. This is the coming-of-age story of a young man who leaves a rural village with his sister to go in search of their mother who has gone to the city to work. Eventually they find her, too sick to work, alone and in need of help. How Themba deals with his mother’s HIV illness, becomes a budding national football star, then realizes that he too has been infected with HIV, is the story of this moving book which is aimed at teen readers. Should he keep quiet about his illness for the sake of his career, or speak out?