Tag: Tokoloshe

Truth, lies and the ghoulies in the bathwater

CONVENTIONALLY, YOU MAY think of the horror genre, and the images that pop into your head will derive from western culture: Of vampires and werewolves and centuries-old gothic houses that creak and grumble under old untold tales. But we’re in Africa, and the yarns that unfurl here, can […]

He ain’t scary, he’s my tokoloshe

SAY THE WORD ‘tokoloshe’ and you will have people quivering in their boots for generations. But relieve that scary sprite of his evil associations and you open a rich vein of narrative possibilities that teases open everything from fake news to bullying, fah-fee rhetoric to face time with […]

The fine art of filching sheep

YOU’VE HEARD OF the Leprechaun, the Tokoloshe, Pinky-Pinky, Kalula the rabbit and others – fictional characters that represent the trickster values in a given culture. They’re made up yet believable, feisty and quirky, naughty and a touch sinister, but they evade the structures of society and crop up […]