{"id":176430685,"date":"2014-01-09T01:04:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T07:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176430685"},"modified":"2014-01-09T01:04:33","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T07:04:33","slug":"interview-video-mike-maphoto-diary-of-a-zulu-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2014\/01\/09\/interview-video-mike-maphoto-diary-of-a-zulu-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW + VIDEO: Mike Maphoto &#8211; &#8216;Diary of a Zulu Girl&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Mike-Maphoto.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-176430687\" alt=\"Mike Maphoto\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Mike-Maphoto.png\" width=\"400\" height=\"352\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Mike-Maphoto.png 400w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Mike-Maphoto-300x264.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: xx-large;\"><strong>MIKE MAPHOTO<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: xx-large;\"><strong>&#8216;Diary of a Zulu Girl&#8217;<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"922\" height=\"519\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AGhvGhAmrpg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: large;\"><strong>__________________________<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/africa-in-words.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-176430686\" alt=\"africa in words\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/africa-in-words.jpg\" width=\"404\" height=\"94\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/africa-in-words.jpg 404w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/africa-in-words-300x69.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a title=\"05:00\" href=\"http:\/\/africainwords.com\/2013\/09\/16\/qa-with-diary-of-a-zulu-girl-author-mike-maphoto\/\" rel=\"bookmark\"><time datetime=\"2013-09-16T05:00:34+00:00\">16 SEPTEMBER , 2013<\/time><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Q&amp;A with \u2018Diary of a Zulu Girl\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> author Mike\u00a0Maphoto<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><strong><br \/>\nBY\u00a0<a title=\"View all posts by Stephanie Santana\" href=\"http:\/\/africainwords.com\/author\/stephboschsantana\/\" rel=\"author\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">STEPHANIE SANTANA<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<i style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Mike Maphoto\u2019s \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/diaryofazulugirl.co.za\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Diary of a Zulu Girl<\/span><\/a>\u2019 blog is something of a digital literature phenomenon. Since it began a scant five months ago in April 2013, it has had more than 10 million page views from 22 countries, spawned numerous copycat diaries online and is set to become a television series as well as a self-published book. Told from the point of view of Thandeka, a young girl from South Africa\u2019s rural KwaZulu-Natal, the diary chronicles her life in the sprawling metropolis\u00a0<\/i><i style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">o<\/i><i style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">f Jo<\/i><i style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">hannesburg, where she has come to study law at Wits University. Thandeka quickly finds herself involved with several older Nigerian men who buy h<\/i><i style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">er drinks, expensive clothes, and most importantly, buy\u00a0her loyalty. A month later, in May, Maphoto started a second blog, \u2018Confessions of a Sugar Baby\u2019, which delves into the high school years of one of the original diary\u2019s central characters. Maphoto is both prolific and provocative: alternating posts of \u2018Diary\u2019 and \u2018Confessions\u2019 are published each weekday (with 104 and 51 chapters, respectively) and issues of sexuality, changing gender roles, cultural norms and xenophobia are frequently addressed. At the end of each post, Maphoto invites readers to respond to a question related to these topics, garnering hundreds of comments on each post.\u00a0<\/i><i style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Writing the blog entries from his mobile phone\u2014the same way that many of his avid fans read them\u2014Maphoto is helping to alter the landscape of South Africa\u2019s publishing industry as well as its reading and writing culture.<\/i><\/p>\n<section><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"906589_10151356335451841_1381237011_o\" src=\"http:\/\/africainwords.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/906589_10151356335451841_1381237011_o.jpg?w=300&amp;h=200\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/span><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i><br \/>\nStephanie Santana for AiW: I\u2019ve read that your blog actually began as a prank on one of your friends. Can you explain further?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Mike Maphoto: My friend likes blogs. He\u2019s an avid reader. He was going on and on about some blog, and the people in the blog\u2014how he knew them. He\u2019s a name-dropper. So basically the plan was to trick him and see if he will say he knows the people in my blog. He was saying, \u2018I know this girl, I know her, I\u2019ve seen her\u2019. And you know, he kind of got busted. He\u2019s like that person who always knows everybody who\u2019s famous.<\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>What kind of blogs was your friend reading? Were they fictional or non-fictional?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">The one he was reading was called \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/unemployedsidenigga.tumblr.com\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Chronicles of an Unemployed Side Nigga<\/span><\/a>\u2019, and it turns out this guy wrote a true story. That\u2019s why he stopped writing because obviously the people he mentioned were on his case. I actually know the girls involved. That\u2019s how my blog started basically, but I never read it [Chronicles].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Which writers have influenced you or inspired you?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">I grew up on Harry Potter. I was the guy who would go and wait in the line for the book to come out. I\u2019ve written a book that was influenced very much by Harry Potter, a fantasy fiction with magic. I wrote a series of three books\u2014also as a joke. I had a friend who was very big on Harry Potter, and I kept saying that I could do better. You notice the first Harry Potters were very simple. They were written for someone who is 12, so I figured I could write the same thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Did you try to publish the series?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">You see, the problem is that in South Africa they don\u2019t publish fantasy fiction. So yes, I did try but everywhere you go they will tell you straight, \u2018We don\u2019t do this.\u00a0We like political books, or books with animals, fables\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Now that you have made a name for yourself as a writer, do you think you might try to publish the fantasy series?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">In South Africa I might be a name, but here people aren\u2019t really readers, to be honest. Most of the comments on the blog are people saying, \u2018Wow, I haven\u2019t read for such a long time, since high school many years ago, this thing has made me read\u2019. It\u2019s very rare to get people to read, so any publisher panics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Has anyone approached you about turning \u2018Diary of a Zulu Girl\u2019 into a book?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i><\/i>Yes, Penguin Africa approached me. We had the meeting a week or two after my first radio interview. The guy who approached me is actually the president of Penguin Africa. He came personally. He told me they would get back to me in a week or so with details, but it took about two months, and by then I was doing advertising and stuff. When they did make the offer it was an insult, to be honest, because they offered me R 5,000. For a while the blog was number one in South Africa. Even now, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything that enjoys such numbers in the country. I\u2019m averaging about 45,000 readers per day and they offer $500 and say that it takes nine months to make a book? That\u2019s a long time because people are already reading something on this book. I turned them down eventually. I am going to self-publish. I\u2019ve already started the process, met the printing company, everything.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>There\u2019s been a lot of discussion in the blog\u2019s comments about language. Some readers want the grammar to be spotless while others think it\u2019s fitting that there are errors because it is a diary and is meant to be written by a young person. What are your thoughts on this debate?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"970196_180175332144591_1236228921_n\" src=\"http:\/\/africainwords.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/970196_180175332144591_1236228921_n.jpg?w=257&amp;h=300\" width=\"257\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: small;\"><strong>Profile picture from the Diary of a Zulu Girl Facebook page<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">I think it\u2019s very interesting because I always argue about this with people. All of the properly written textbooks\u2014nobody buys them. Nobody wants to read something properly written. It\u2019s ironic that the blog is so big, yet to be fair, even by my own standards, the grammar is terrible. The spelling is terrible. But people seem to love such writing. Another thing that I think even government needs to learn\u2014they make these kids read Shakespeare, they can\u2019t even read it. It\u2019s hard. At home you don\u2019t speak English so everything that you do you first have to translate it. The blog seems like it\u2019s written by an African. They relate faster because it makes so much sense to them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>You have readers from 22 countries around the world. What have you noticed in terms of who is reading and from where?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Obviously the number one country is South Africa. Number two is the UK. I think the story of the girl is quite universal. There\u2019s a movie with Ashton Kutcher [<i>Spread<\/i>\u00a02009] where he\u2019s a playboy in Hollywood. Same storyline. He comes from a small town, and he\u2019s very good looking. All of the women are after him and he\u2019s using them for money. It\u2019s the same thing. It happens everywhere. If you go to Nigeria for example, they\u2019ve got girls who come from the village to the big city. They meet all these people with money who they do things with. Go to the UK, it\u2019s the same thing. I think a lot of people are relating to the situations this girl goes through.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>How do you explain the blog\u2019s success?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">What made my blog bigger than everybody else\u2019s was that a lot of people mentioned it. Parents are concerned about what their kids are doing\u2014their daughter comes home with more money than they gave her and she\u2019s not working. Then there was this blog telling true-life stories of what\u2019s happening in South Africa right now. Parents started talking and somebody called into a radio station and said there\u2019s this and blog it\u2019s very critical for our kids. Then they interviewed me. By then the blog itself was quite popular because another thing, and it\u2019s very sad, people want women to appear as loose. The interest came from\u2014here\u2019s a woman who has no shame, she is loose. They call my character bad names even today. She\u2019s a slut, she\u2019s all this. But in all fairness, in the entire blog, she\u2019s only slept with two people. But if you ask anyone they think she is a lost child. We live in a very sexist community and actually the sexism doesn\u2019t come from men. It comes from\u00a0<i>women<\/i>\u00a0against other\u00a0<i>women<\/i>. It\u2019s something very ironic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>You\u2019ve said you usually read the blog\u2019s comments\u2014what do you think of them, what do you do with them? Do they impact you as you write the next chapter?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Reading is not really interactive. It\u2019s the author telling you their thoughts, but you can see that people are dying to say something, so what I started doing was asking questions at the end of the blog. This makes everybody feel like they\u2019re part of the story. Social media, if there\u2019s one thing it\u2019s good at, is making everybody feel involved. What I\u2019ve noticed is that first people talk about the blog, then they answer the question, but they say more on the question. It\u2019s creating a big platform.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Have you ever read a comment and said, oh that would be a good twist and worked it into the story?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">I think it is true of all artists that we are arrogant. I always feel like I\u2019m better than the comments. Once you have the comment and you do what the person wants, it\u2019s like someone saying, \u2018Oh, I told you so.\u2019 Now when I see something like that, I try to shock that person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Why did you decide to start \u2018Confessions of a Sugar Baby\u2019?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"944595_1397783607105260_1401939922_n\" src=\"http:\/\/africainwords.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/944595_1397783607105260_1401939922_n.jpg?w=300&amp;h=225\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: small;\"><strong>Maphoto was featured in South Africa\u2019s Drum magazine in July<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><br \/>\nThis was a personal thing for me because now I knew that I could write. Now I knew that I had an audience. It\u2019s a very interesting thing\u2014how does a 45-year-old man go to a 16-year-old girl? What I did was I asked questions. I told people I\u2019d like to write about sugar daddies and asked them for their life stories. The things I\u2019ve heard\u2014it\u2019s properly sad. With \u2018Diary\u2019 it\u2019s so tense because everybody wants a good story. Everybody wants drama. Everybody wants to poke fun at this girl or the foreigners. When I started doing \u2018Confessions\u2019, it gave me a chance to breathe and gather my thoughts. But then as time went on, I should have realized that \u2018Confessions\u2019 is actually much harder to write because a lot of people are closer to it than they are to \u2018Diary\u2019. At the end of the day, \u2018Diary\u2019 is about clubbing. Not everybody clubs, not everybody wears that short dress. But with \u2018Confessions\u2019, it\u2019s your daughter, and she\u2019s starting to like things, getting phone calls at night\u2014from who? A lot of parents especially love \u2018Confessions\u2019. The comments on it are fewer than the comments on \u2018Diary\u2019, but they say more things. You can see somebody thought this through.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>How many more chapters do you plan to do of each?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">For \u2018Diary\u2019, for now, I\u2019m going to finish I think at 120, but that\u2019s because of TV. They are using 39 chapters per season, so I want to have 120 to be able to have three full seasons.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Are you really going to have fans cast as the characters?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Yes, even with the production company and the TV station, I was very serious about it. People are chuffed [very happy]. In South Africa our industry isn\u2019t growing because we keep recycling the same people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Do you have any qualms about moving away from the blog to the visual format?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">No, the blog isn\u2019t finishing. At 120 I\u2019m going to say it\u2019s end of part one because she\u2019ll be going home for her holidays. I want people to read, but to be honest, I want them to read good English. We\u2019ve got a problem when people don\u2019t read. I\u2019ve never dated a girl who reads. And when I read, most of the girls I\u2019ve dated have taken offense. Seriously, in this country, if a guy reads it\u2019s considered gay. But when is reading ever bad?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>Can you tell me a bit about your future projects?<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">I\u2019m now writing TV scripts, and so far people who have seen them are in love with them. I\u2019m trying to breathe fresh air into our TV, fresh thoughts. I have one that is like gossip girl. It\u2019s called\u00a0<i>West Road South<\/i>. Back in the 90\u2019s it was the road with the most black millionaires in the country. The story is based in a very expensive school, rich kids and what they do for fun, plus their parents. Then I have a movie called\u00a0<i>Life<\/i>\u00a0about a black girl who\u2019s adopted by white parents when she\u2019s a toddler. Then the white parents die, and there\u2019s no one to take care of her and she has to go stay in the township with her former nanny. It\u2019s a very interesting but tricky story. There are a lot of black kids who are in white families, but how do they relate to the rest of the black people?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><i>I\u2019d like to thank Mike for taking time out of his busy schedule to speak with me. The print book of \u2018Diary of a Zulu Girl\u2019 may be available as early as December of this year. In the meantime, both \u2018Diary\u2019 and \u2018Confessions\u2019 can be accessed at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/diaryofazulugirl.co.za\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">diaryofazulugirl.co.za<\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&gt;via:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/africainwords.com\/2013\/09\/16\/qa-with-diary-of-a-zulu-girl-author-mike-maphoto\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/africainwords.com\/2013\/09\/16\/qa-with-diary-of-a-zulu-girl-author-mike-maphoto\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MIKE MAPHOTO &#8216;Diary of a Zulu Girl&#8217; __________________________ &nbsp; &nbsp; 16 SEPTEMBER , 2013 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Q&amp;A with \u2018Diary of a Zulu Girl\u2019 author Mike\u00a0Maphoto &nbsp; BY\u00a0STEPHANIE SANTANA\u00a0 Mike Maphoto\u2019s \u2018Diary of a Zulu Girl\u2019 blog is something of a digital literature phenomenon. Since it began a scant five months ago in April [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[6],"tags":[4,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176430685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176430685"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176430685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176430730,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176430685\/revisions\/176430730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176430685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176430685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176430685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}