We're happy to announce the upcoming release of Rumblin', the new chapbook from Durban poet Sihle Ntuli.

Ntuli is a poet that does something that many poets try, and most fail at. His poetry is based on its own internal rhythm and music.

Perhaps even more so than other South African cities, Durban is a place that is defined by its music and soundscape, from the steady persistence of waves along its long-stretching coast, to the Dopplering noise of taxis as they trawl the sprawling metropolis with over-loud and distorting sound systems. (There's a reason why it's the home of qgom, after all.) It is a city that is as loud as it is humid, and is as inside you as you are inside it. Rumblin' captures this Durban in a style gradually becoming Ntuli's own – sparse free verse that relies on its own beat and sound to create and emphasise meaning.

It's a slim and surprising chapbook, full of verve, unexpected pockets of sadness and humour, and, in general, is just really good. This is the right thing for you if you're tired of the same old thing.

Ntuli is a classicist and academic, born in 1990. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Classical Civilisations and has lectured previously at the University of the Free State. During his tenure, he was awarded the 2019 CTL Innovation Award for Curriculum Design and Delivery. He is previously the author of Stranger (2015) and was shortlisted for the DALRO Poetry Prize in 2017.

The book is available from the beginning of September through bookstores in South Africa and Namibia, distributed by Protea Boekhuis, and is from next week available overseas through the African Books Collective. RRP is R100.