Her father's last wish was a simple coffin. Death has more complicated ideas.
Kgosi Morabe has spent forty years being the one who holds the secrets of others while keeping her own buried. She's a PR professional: Invisibility is the job. But when her father dies and the family descends on their Sandton mansion in a chaos of designer mourning dresses, four live cows, and a half-brother nobody knew existed, Kgosi finds herself at the centre of something she can't spin her way out of.
Because her father cheated death once, in a Soweto street in 1976. And now Death wants something back.
Ferociously funny, steeped in Yoruba mythology, and set inside the gilded dysfunction of Johannesburg's Black Diamond elite, Death Rattle is a debut that announces a major new voice in African speculative fiction. Grief is a performance, class is a weapon, and the Orisha Oya has been watching from the storm clouds all along.
Some inheritances you don't get to refuse.
Death Rattle | Lebogang Matseke
Lebogang Neo Matseke is a Johannesburg-based author, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Her creative work is rooted in African cosmologies, ancestral storytelling, and reflections on identity, grief, and redemption. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Film from Syracuse University in the United States, a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism from India, and a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand.
She believes that stories are spirit-work — a way to give voice to what history forgets, and to honour the echoes that still walk with us.
DEATH RATTLE will be a comfortably familiar type of story for fans of classic fantasy. Kgosi needs to shed the burdens of mundane life to prove herself capable of stepping into a powerful, arcane role. Where DEATH RATTLE distinguishes itself is in the Johannesburg Black Diamond elite setting. Kgosi's stepfamily are so much more treacherous than Cinderella's! The politicking, the backbiting, the betrayal... all with an impeccably made up smile on their faces (and muthi in their pockets.)
I really enjoyed the Yoruba mythology in this, too. Oya and her realm felt appropriately otherworldly and unknowable. The moments where Kgosi shifted between planes were some of my favourites.