Rethabile Masilo was born in Lesotho in 1961. He is the author of four poetry collections: Things that are Silent (Pindrop Press, 2012), Waslap (The Onslaught Press, 2015), Letter to Country (Canopic, 2016) and Qoaling (The Onslaught Press, 2018). His work has appeared in various literary journals online and in print. His collection Waslap won the 2016 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. He now lives in Paris with his wife and children.
You were born in Lesotho but now live in Paris, after stays in South Africa, Kenya and the US. How did you end up in Paris?
Our family was targeted, in 1981, in an organised night attack by agents of the then Lesotho government, the aim being to eliminate our father, Ben Masilo, who had been an outspoken opponent of the government. Following that attack, which failed to kill our father but instead took the life of my 3-year-old nephew, Motlatsi, we left the country in a hurry by crossing the frontier into South Africa under the pretext of ’going shopping’. Read more.
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