South African writer and journalist Niq Mhlongo recently released his third short story collection titled For You, I’d Steal a Goat. Published by Kwela Books on May 6, the collection features stories with unique characters and suspenseful plots, set in the dramas of South African society.

Mhlongo’s collection is made up of 10 short stories and they explore “the things people do for each other, but also to each other,” including major themes such as injustice, corruption, love, desire and other aspects of human interaction.

The book description lists a couple of the short stories in the collection:

Memorable characters and intriguing plots abound: A family refuses to leave when the bank repossesses their house; stalking has an unexpected outcome; a desensitised morgue manager is spooked; in-laws are taken to court; South Africans trapped in Germany want to appease the ancestors with a goat; and more!

Based on the description of the collection, For You, I’d Steal a Goat seems to feature short stories focusing on a wide range of socioeconomic and political issues in South Africa such as political corruption, racial biases, family troubles, and lovers’ spats, to name a few. This book is a definite must-have for readers who enjoy tales about political intrigue and social dilemmas. Mhlongo’s collection is bound to be just as engaging as his previous novels and collections.

Mhlongo says in an interview his writing is often inspired by his interactions with people: “Writing is something that you do with others, that you measure through others.” Mhlongo adds that the final part of writing is when he sits behind a desk and starts typing, thus viewing his writing as an organic process that begins with human interaction. This focus on human interaction is something that we see reflected in his short story collection For You, I’d Steal a Goat as well where he captures the human condition in all its shades of gray.

Niq Mhlongo is an award-winning author from Soweto, South Africa. His works include Dog Eat Dog (2004), After Tears (2007), Way Back Home (2013), Black Tax (2019), Paradise in Gaza (2020), Hauntings (2021), and more. His debut novel Dog Eat Dog won the Mar der Letras Intenecionale award in 2006 and his anthology Soweto, Under The Apricot Tree won the Herman Charles Bosman Literary Prize for English Fiction and the Nadine Gordimer Short-Shory Award in 2019.

If you enjoy short story collections with character-driven plots, like Malika Moustadraf’s Blood Feast and Billy Kohara’s The Cape Cod Bicycle War and Other Stories, then we definitely recommend you add For You, I’d Steal a Goat to your reading list!

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Buy For You, I’d Steal a Goat: Bookshop (UK) | Amazon (US) | Book Lounge (South Africa)