18 Jun 2014

Her passion for writing mushroomed when she was a teenager, but had always resisted it until one day she decided to pen down and paint the paper in ink by expressing her thoughts and painful emotions until she was numb.

Ludo Nkabiti, a second year Bachelor of Accountancy student at the University of Botswana, launched her book entitled The Road to Tomorrow last week.
The book is a poetic fiction novel that narrates the story of a young girl Chloe, who goes through tremendous trials and tribulations in life as she germinates off age.

It is a collection of all the challenges that young people face as of present, which include amongst others, alcohol and drug abuse. The setting of the book is an imaginary 21st century African times and the plot is as well imaginary as it is a novel.

The writer expresses herself with deep poetic devices and infuses poems in the novel; it is the technique of its kind as we have never seen before.

The main character, Chloe is a proponent of poetry and finds pleasure in painting her papers with ink, as it liberates her.


Throughout the course of the book, we see Chloe finding refuge in ink all the time as she experiences a downfall.

Chloe faces a lot of trials on the path to her destination; she faces the repercussions of her parents’ divorce, and finds refuge in tablets with the intention of committing suicide.

She then comes to a stage where death takes away her pillar and hope, her grandmother which marks her breaking point; one thing that pushes her to the edge that she ended up hiding behind the bottle of spirits.

The turnover, but through her determination and zeal to become a legend she makes it to the very end and becomes successful in all she does; she grows to become a successful writer and poet.

Speaking at the book launch, Nkabiti said she did not write the book to seek fame or to entertain but rather to motivate and inspire young teenagers to be better people who do not give up in life easily and strive for excellence all the time.

“The central theme of this novel is perseverance, it communicates that young people must fix their lives on the road that will take them to a better tomorrow,” she said.

She urged young people to be involved in literature and help grow it in Botswana as writing puts a plate in many people’s tables.
“It is not a waste of time as many people believe; it is of paramount importance that we do away with laziness and start reading novels, papers and many more,” she said.

Nkabiti said she personally believe reading is the fundamental basis of education and if people wish and strive to be an ‘educated and informed nation,’ if ought to read, research and thus they will defeat many challenges.
She further challenged the government to help nurture the talent that young people have.

She also urged the private sector to be involved in elevating young writers, “it would help buy these books that our young Batswana write and donate them to the teenagers in the outskirts of the country who cannot afford them, in that way you would be helping both the writer and the reader,” she stated.

For his part, the Botswana National Young Council (BNYC) vice chairperson, Mr Moemedi Baikalafi called on Batswana to revive the culture of reading. 
“Even though in our country literature is something that we are not familiar with, we must try our best to read our children’s books,” he said.

He said though Botswana youth know English and literature very well, they should not forget Setswana and must strive to write Setswana novels.
He promised Nkabiti that BNYC will assist her with the marketing of the book across borders which will enable cultural exchange.

The book was published in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture, Department of Library Services and Botswana Printing and Publishing Company. The book costs P100 and is available in all book stores countrywide. ENDS