MaMkhize’s memoir tells the tale behind her success
Durban businesswoman, socialite, TV personality, and soccer club owner Shauwn Mkhize will launch her book titled “MaMkhize: My World, My Rules” on Friday.
MaMkhize became an internet sensation in 2020, when she gained over a million followers just a few months after creating her Instagram profile.
Since then, she has been a content queen, documenting her luxurious holidays, displaying her expensive fashion taste, and sharing important family moments.
But it is through her memoir that readers will learn about her childhood, family, business, and all that comes in between.
The book, made up of 20 chapters, is a light, witty read, giving details of places and people who contributed towards creating many valuable life moments for MaMkhize.
The first two chapters are letters to her father, Amos Mos Mtuno, and her mother, Florence Mkhize, who was an ANC veteran and anti-apartheid activist.
She fondly remembers her mother’s infectious laughter, courageous spirit, and brilliant mind, describing her as “a political paragon of strength” and someone who “could juggle a machine gun with a baby on her back”.
Her unconditional love for her parents is palpable in the first few pages of the book, as is the agony she felt when her father was murdered.
“My dad’s body was found on the banks of a stream in uMlazi township, pumped with a bullet to his head and handcuffed behind him. The day was June 12, 1990. He was 40 years old and left a young widow to take care of his four children, until we discovered that he had fathered three other children.
Every violent death is devastating, but there is something particularly evil about killing a man without giving him a chance to fight for his life,” reads the book.
MaMkhize takes the reader back to the political torture her family endured, as well as the many not-so-glamorous parts of her life that have sharpened her into the woman she is today.
Towards the end of the memoir, MaMkhize wears her heart on her sleeve in a chapter dedicated to her answered prayer, Sbahle Mpisane, her and ex-husband Sbu Mpisane’s daughter.
She details how, at the peak of Sbahle’s career, their lives were turned upside down when she was involved in a car accident in August 2018.
At the time of her accident, Sbahle, who holds a degree in housing and town planning from UKZN, was in a romantic relationship with Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune. However, amnesia contributed to the relationship ending. The chapter details the intensity of the months and years of Sbahle’s recovery.
MaMkhize described the call in which she was informed of the accident as the “most awful call of my life”.
“I learned she had broken all her bones in her body, both arms, both legs and toes. Her face was another medley of broken bones, hanging eye sockets and a broken jaw, even her fingers were broken. How was she still alive? I wondered in gratitude.”
The book satisfies the curiosity of many in a chapter titled “My Name Is Shauwn”. Readers are taken on a giddy journey, but the tragedies in the writer’s early life bring one back to reality.
MaMkhize hopes that the book inspires young black girls to dream of the impossible, to be driven, resilient and steadfast.
“Readers will come out with a lot of information regarding my childhood and my family.
Many people think I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth because my mom was a political activist but that’s not the case.
Nothing came easy for us, we went through a lot of trials and tribulations. I’ve worked extremely hard to be where I am today and I’ve never allowed my upbringing to dictate my future.”
The memoir is available at Exclusive Books nationally, and the venue of the book launch is yet to be confirmed.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE