The Hidden Star

Nolitye lives in a shack with her mother Thembi in Phola, a dusty township on the edge of Johannesburg. She is good at maths and likes collecting stones, which she places in a bucket under her bed. She also has unusual powers: she can communicate with dogs. Nolitye has two close friends, Bheki, who is overweight, and the bespectacled Four Eyes, who join with her to resist the bullying from Rotten Nellie and her gang of Spoilers. One day, Nolitye finds a special stone that has the power to make people feel happy and laugh. Her mission from now on is to gather together the other pieces of the stone and reunite them, to stop darkness from taking control of her world.

By the time of his untimely death, K. Sello Duiker had published various short stories and two novels. Thirteen Cents was awarded the Commonwealth Prize for a first novel, while The Quiet Violence of Dreams won the Herman Charles Bosman Prize for English Literature. Duiker was born and raised in Soweto. He attended Rhodes University, where he completed a degree in journalism.