Welcome to our Hillbrow

 “Welcome to Our Hillbrow” by Phaswane Mpe is an autobiography written in second person narrative. . He expressed the novel based on personal experiences of depression and suicidal thoughts for the story. He shows how living in South Africa was during apartheid by exploring the issues of crime, drugs, rape, suicide, AIDS, and xenophobia. Lust and betrayal are touched upon as well. Throughout the novel Mpe manages to capture the pulse of Hillbrow, a neighborhood of Johannesburg, giving us some sense of degrees of urban violence.

            The use of different character perspectives in this book helped me understand better the different points of view of the characters and also more about Hillbrow itself.  Some of these perspectives include the author’s perspective. Refentse’s perspective explains why things happened in his life and explains why his decision to commit suicide occurs. We also see the perspective of Tiragalong people toward the city people of Johannesburg,  the “heaven” perspective, and the perspective of South Africans on non-South Africans people.

            Each of the principal characters, have lost their sanity, experienced a violent death, had HIV/AIDS or committed suicide. Through these tragedies, life journeys, and effects of suicides, accidents, and illness, Mpe develops a trope of infection. The novel's different elements are all interconnected.  For example, after Referentse's death, his mother, accused her son of bewitching, is "necklaced" with tires and set aflame. Lerato, Referentse's lover, commits suicide, mainly because of a feeling of guilt over his death and also because of false rumors spread by Refilwe, Referentse's first love. These rumors encourage on the bad reputation of Hillbrowan women and xenophobic feelings about all migrant foreigners. In turn, Refilwe's own journey, from Tiragalong to Johannesburg to Oxford in and back to Tiragalong, ultimately shows the same elements of loneliness, betrayal, suffering, and, death.