Coconut

Coconut is a story that deals with growing up as a black child in a white world. It is the story of black youth who grow up in white neighbourhoods, go to private schools and have white friends. As is the case with any child, all that these children want is to grow, to be loved; but most importantly, to fit in. Fitting in, however, comes at the cost of one’s blackness - too white for black, and too black for white.

Narrated from a teenager's perspective, [this] is an audacious, lyrical and compassionate tale. It explores the grey, in-between, intimate experiences and dilemmas of a young girl who, like the society around her, is undergoing changes that call old boundaries, comforts, and certitudes into question. --European Union Literary Award Jury

Kopano Matlwa won the 2006/2007 European Union Award for her first novel, Coconut, which went on to become a bestseller and a classic South African novel, and subsequently jointly won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2010. Her successive novels, Spilt Milk and Period Pain, were also published to great acclaim, with Period Pain shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. Between them her novels have been translated to close to a dozen languages. When she is not writing, Kopano works as a public health physician. Kopano lives in Johannesburg with her husband and three children.