About VC Netwox

Vulindlela Communications launched a not-for-profit series of reading and debating forums in 2005, called the “VC NetWox & Book Club”. This initiative seeks to promote original works of black South African authors in particular, and to help engender a culture of reading and engagement among black South Africans generally.

Authors whose books are released within a particular calendar year are invited to the Club to give readings and exchange ideas with other authors, budding writers, journalists, various professionals and others who have an interest in literature. There are also book sales for on-the-spot author signings.

Many years of apartheid and generally poor education standards have left South Africa with a largely illiterate black populace. And because reading was never really encouraged as part of black people’s educational culture (unless, of course, it was for purposes of preparing them for menial jobs in the apartheid economy), even a greater number of those who’ve managed to get themselves a decent education and are sufficiently literate, show a frightening aversion to books and reading in general – further perpetuating this “culture of not reading”.

The unfortunate result has been the desperately sluggish literary industry here; where writers, unless established, write with that ever-present but unusually remote hope of being published, or, if published, with the even more remote chance of making a living off their work. In the short time that it has existed, the VC Netwox Book Club has hosted debutants such as Myesha Jenkins, Mtutuzeli Nyoka, Siimao Kikamba, Fred Khumalo, Morabo Morojele and Kgebetli Moele. All of them appreciated the simple fact that somebody showed an interest in their work, and gave them an audience; an audience, in most cases, that may not have bothered with those books were it not for initiatives like those of VC Netwox.