During embalming an arm jerks and strikes a mortician, leaving him unmoored. A pastor's wife encounters a young congregant in her kitchen wearing her apron and preparing breakfast. A man's attempt to make sense of why a tornado picked him up leads to a showdown with a cult leader. A daydreaming, gawky kid is appointed guardian of a watermelon that the ocean could snatch away. Love comes slowly, like water heating over a low fire or extra sugar being stirred into tea. In another story, the love of a father cannot save his musician son. A young woman living in a recognisable future contemplates the end of memory as her body transforms into the silver promise of a carapace. Another young woman feels she should be smiling but nothing stirs in her when her father wakes from death after 15 minutes. Battling portentous pre-dawn heat and still air, a bystander abandons removing caterpillars from a Ficus because the idea of touching them makes her squeamish. Elsewhere in the suburbs, in a fixer-upper from hell, crickets screech and squeal, their ringing like that of a demented alarm clock.
When Water Wants To presents the winners of the DALRO Can Themba Short Story Award. Celebrating the legacy of master storyteller Can Themba, this collection provokes, inspires, challenges and entertains with bold storytelling and keen social commentary. The stories range from the deeply personal to the wildly allegorical, playing with genre conventions and inhabiting a multitude of perspectives and unruly voices. These exciting new authors confirm the pre-eminence of the short story, and its oral antecedents, by delving into the national psyche in the conversations they have, the connections they make, and the themes, concerns and water-soaked imagery they share.
When Water Wants To brings together the ten winners of the literary competition, the DALRO Can Themba Short Story Award. In celebraton of Themba's legacy, these emerging South African authors provoke, inspire, challenge and entertain with bold storytelling and keen social commentary. Their stories range from the deeply personal to the wildly allegorical, playing with genre conventions and inhabiting a multitude of perspectives and unruly voices. Confirming the pre-eminence of the short story, and its oral antecedents in our culture, the stories delve into the national psyche in the conversations they have, the connections and parallels they make and the themes, concerns and water-soaked imagery they share.
The featured stories include 'No Good Deed' (KJ Aires); 'Murmur Becomes a Wave' (Megan Choritz); 'Mr Duiker Sang the Blues' (Dyondzo Kwinika); 'Letters of Remembrance' (Sebabatso Madibu); 'Zombie' (Lerato Mahlangu); 'A Mortician's Instinct' (Kamva Majo), 'African Death, Western Medicine' ( Lethukukhanya Mzulwini); 'The Woman Who Buried Rain' (Rabada Unarine Princess); 'The Watermelon Caretaker' (Rosieda Shabodien); and 'Man of the House' (Dashalia Singaram).
Neil Coppen is an award-winning playwright who lives between the cities of Durban and Johannesburg where he works as a writer, director and designer. He won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Drama in 2011 and was nominated on the 2011 Mail & Guardian's 200 most influential Young South Africans. His play Abnormal Loads won the 2012 Naledi Award for Best South African Script. Other works include Tree Boy, Sugar Daddies and Animal Farm.
Jacqui Aires is an English teacher and has degrees in English and psychology, an MA in writing, and additional qualifications spanning her varied interests. She cofounded Write Jozi and lives in Johannesburg with her partner.
Megan Choritz is a writer, theatre maker, actor and improviser, living in Cape Town. She won praise for her debut novel Lost Property (2023).
Dyondzo Kwinika writes from South Africa's historically segregated communities, exploring identity, mental health and generational trauma. His work examines how history and culture shape the ways we love, grieve and change.
Sebabatso Madibu is a Johannesburg-based writer whose work explores the South African experience through new and imaginative forms. Her storytelling bridges past and present to imagine futures that interrogate what we inherit and how it moulds who we become.
Lerato Mahlangu is short story writer from eMalahleni, Mpumalanga. Her works have appeared in anthologies including One Life (2025), edited by Joanne Hitchens and Karina Szczurek, and Mandla's Mark and Other Stories (2025). She was the winner of the 2024 My World, My Words children's story writing competition.
Kamva Majo is a South African writer whose story We Cannot Afford To Be Silent was included in the Power: Short.Sharp.Stories (2025) anthology, edited by Joanne Hitchens. Her writing explores mental health, death and unsettling social realities.
Lethukukhanya Mzulwini grew up in and has been inspired by Esikhawini, a small township in KwaZulu-Natal. His work explores the intricate threads of lineage and heritage, seeking answers to timeless questions and sparking new perspectives.
Princess Unarine Rabada is a writer of stories and songs and a theatre practitioner from Limpopo. Her work is deeply inspired by her Venda roots, weaving themes of ancestral memory, womanhood and African spirituality into lyrical, emotionally rich narratives.
Rosieda Shabodien is an executive coach, gender and development specialist, and writer whose creative nonfiction draws from her experiences growing up under apartheid. Her stories explore resistance and are steeped in history, longing, humour and the urgent act of remembering.
Dashalia Singaram is an engineer and a writer.
