Meet Thando
Join Thando on a journey of literary discovery and social impact.
Join Thando on a journey of literary discovery and social impact.
Thando Mgqolozana is a novelist, curator and filmmaker. Over the last decade, his creative works have won numerous national and international prizes. Since its world premiere at Sundance, The Wound has collected more than 26 international awards and has found a home in over 30 territories worldwide. Most notably, it was shortlisted for the 90th Academy Awards. Two of these awards are for Best Screenplay.
In this period, Thando’s novels - primarily A Man Who is Not A Man - has provided inspiration to a dynamic body of scholarship (refer to Maluleke, van Klinken, Stobie). While making The Wound, of which he is co-author and translator, Thando also provided advice in the adaptation of A Man Who is Not A Man to The Goat. The Goat won the Best Short Film at the Independent Mzansi Short Film Festival (2014), and earned nominations in Stockholm.
Recognizing Thando Mgqolozana's trailblazing achievements that inspire generations.
A Journey of Personal and Professional Growth
Thando is a former student leader at the University of the Western Cape, where he was awarded the Henrietta Stockdale Prize and Golden Key International Honour for his commitment to the philosophy of care and his academic achievements.
He has worked in Research Development at the Human Sciences Research Council, University of KwaZulu-Natal, and the University of Cape Town. His research output includes Nursing in a New Era, a seminal research monograph that considers the profile, image and status of nursing today and the nature and role of nursing education. A major concern was that, although nursing still attracts many more students than there are places available, the gap between the large numbers who complete their training and the relatively small growth in the professional registers, indicates high attrition rates. The decline in the role of the public sector in the training of nurses is another worrying trend.
To pivot from the pandemic, having cancelled the milestone 5th Abantu Book Festival due to another spike of COVID-19, Thando Mgqolozana created and produced the breakthrough television series, The Ultimate Book Show, a 2022 & 2023 Festival de Cannes feature, also showing on the free-to-air national broadcaster, S3, for the rest of 2023. The Ultimate Book Show now exists independently as a special purpose vehicle.
Other notable achievements of his youth include the Mandela Rhodes Scholarship (2006), Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans (2010), The New African's 100 most influential Africans list (2016), Canon Collins Scholarships (2019) and the JIAS Writing Fellowship (2019).
Thando is the founder of Abantu Book Festival , a literary festival that features poetry, panels, keynote performances, bookselling, exhibitions, music, theatre, film, food, fashion, photography, and a vibrant children’s programme. In the period of the pandemic, the festival developed into a production, publishing, and bookselling enterprise. Abantu is renowned for its vision and curatorial brilliance, evoking a joyous celebration of literature (see Kobe). Thando has also curated cultural festivals in Zurich, Durban, and Cape Town.
