Day two of the Eastern Cape Book Fair presents a compelling programme of dialogue that moves across faith, identity, culture, resilience, and inclusion, centred on lived experience and bold African literary voices that are reshaping how we think about identity, culture, and the world we live in.
The second conversation of the day explores life transitions.
What Happens After The Life You Planned Ends?
Featuring Nozipho Tshabalala, Naledi Mqhayi, and facilitated by Sihle-Isipho Nontshokweni-Bikitsha, this conversation explores the lived experience of life disruption, when relationships end, identity shifts, and the future you planned no longer exists.
Anchored in Nozipho Tshabalala’s After the Fires, the discussion reflects on what it means to rebuild after seasons of personal, professional, or emotional collapse, and how people navigate the tension between loss, accountability, healing, and renewal. Naledi Mqhayi brings in reflections from Finding Balance: A Roadmap for Reimagining Life After Divorce, offering a deeply personal lens on divorce as both rupture and reconstruction.
Together, the panel moves beyond survival narratives to ask what intentional rebuilding looks like, how individuals not only recover from disruption, but actively reimagine who they are becoming in its aftermath.
Production Credits
Facilitator | Sihle-Isipho Nontshokweni-Bikitsha
Featuring | Nozipho Tshabalala and Naledi Mqhayi
About the Artists
Nozipho Tshabalala is a best-selling author and the CEO of The Conversation Strategists, where she designs and facilitates high-stakes conversations in complex political, economic, and social environments.
A trusted adviser to executives, global institutions, and governments, she has worked with the World Bank Group, United Nations agencies, multinational corporations, and academic institutions.
Her perspective is shaped by rare cross-sector experience spanning The Presidency of South Africa, CNBC Africa, and Tata Africa, alongside academic rigour in development finance and international relations.
Nozipho is sought after for distilling complexity into insight and convening conversations that drive measurable, lasting impact.
Naledi Nobathembu Mqhayi is a Clinical Psychologist, Mediator, Executive Coach, academic, author, and organisational leader with more than 26 years of experience across private practice, public sector service, psychology education, corporate wellness, medico legal assessment, leadership development, and community based mental health work. She is the CEO and Consulting Psychologist of Mbabazi Consulting (Pty) Ltd, a multidisciplinary psychology firm with a national footprint, and currently serves as a Lecturer at the University of Fort Hare, where she is also a candidate PhD student. Her professional journey includes extensive work in psychotherapy, trauma debriefing, psychological assessment, executive coaching, employee wellness strategy, corporate training, and the development of psychologically informed support systems for individuals, families, leaders, and organisations. Naledi also contributes meaningfully to governance and community development as Board Chairperson of Khuluma Counselling NPO and Chairperson of the Phandulwazi Agricultural High School Alumni. As the author of Finding Balance: A Roadmap for Reimagining Life after Divorce, Naledi brings a deeply reflective, clinically grounded, and socially conscious voice to conversations about healing, identity, resilience, and rebuilding life after personal transition. She offers a compelling blend of professional expertise, academic depth, leadership experience, and literary insight, positioning her as a powerful contributor to discussions on personal transformation, emotional restoration, and the courage to reimagine one’s uture.
- Venue: Olive Schreiner
- Location: Monument Building
- Programme type: LitFest
- Genre: Literature
- Duration: 60 minutes
-
Ages:
ALL AGES
