ROOTBOUND
Manthipe Moila

June 2025
88pp
200mm x 130mm, with 80mm flaps
ISBN: 978-1-0370-5095-4

“What if
you thought of yourself
as being without territories,
borderless, steeped
in something like joy?”

A Brittle Paper Notable African Book of 2025

An absent father dies. Home is no longer so homely. And yet, wherever you go, you cannot escape yourself.

Manthipe Moila’s captivating debut follows a young woman as she finds her place between the blossoming South Africa of her past and the blustery South Korea of her present.

How does one grow in a new place, in a new language? Is it possible to grow new roots, or does pain forever bind us to the past? Drawing on the botanical environment – as well as a self-made jungle of houseplants – Moila meditates on memory and loss, the thrills of exploration, and the journey of becoming. A fresh, inventive and essential new voice in South African literature.

Manthipe Moila was born in 1994 and is from Johannesburg. She holds a BA Hons. in English Literature from Rhodes University, Makhanda. Her poetry has been published widely, including in New Contrast, 20.35 Africa, Kalahari Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Agbowó, A Long House, and Saranac Review.

She is currently based in Seoul, South Korea, surrounded by far too many houseplants. Rootbound is her first book.

Reviews

“A stunning collection. The poems compel a reader’s curiosity forward, line after line, page to page and cover to cover. This is a serious new voice that is cautiously youthful and wise beyond measure. From South Africa to South Korea, themes of home and escape and absence and presence buoy the poems with light and levity through a canopy of shadows.”
– Kenneth May, The Korea Times

“A remarkable and delicate sensibility at work … [Moila] directs fine and discriminating linguistic strategies to a wide range of encounters and situations […] all perfectly in service to the feeling of irredeemable loss. […] There is so much in Moila’s collection that merits close, and admiring, scrutiny.”
– Basil du Toit, Stanzas

“Quietly enwraps the reader, rooting its meditations deeply in the heart. Over just 83 pages, Moila conjures a lyrical world where home and belonging, the pain of loss, and the intricacies of identity are rendered with remarkable sensitivity.”
– Thembela Mputaputa

“Confronts abandonment in a potently truthful way.”
– Mahlatse Mokgope, Grocott’s Mail