Gcina Mhlophe

Nokugcina Elsie Mhlophe (born 24 October 1958), known as Gcina Mhlophe, is a South African storyteller, writer, playwright, and actress.

Nokugcina Elsie Mhlophe was born on 24 October 1958 in KwaZulu-Natal, to a Xhosa mother and a Zulu father.

She started her working life as a domestic worker, and did not visit a library until she was 20 years old.

Gcina Mhlophe worked as a newsreader at the Press Trust and BBC Radio, then as a writer and a magazine for newly-literate people.

Her writing has appeared in collections including A Land Apart: A South African Reader (eds André Brink and J. M. Coetzee, London: Faber and Faber, 1986), Daughters of Africa (ed. Margaret Busby, London: Jonatan Cape, 1992) and Women Writing Africa: The Southern Region (ed. Margaret Daymond, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2002).

Mhlophe mentors young people, developing young talent to carry forward the work of storytelling through the Zanendaba ("Bring me a story") Initiative.

She began to get a sense of the demand for stories while in Chicago in 1988.

She performed at a library in a mostly-Black neighbourhood, where an ever-growing audience kept inviting her back.

Still, Mhlophe only began to think of storytelling as a career after meeting an Imbongi, one of the legendary poets of African folklore, and after encouragement by Mannie Manim, the then-director of the Market Theatre, Johannesburg.

From 1989 to 1990, she was resident director at the Market Theatre.

Mhlophe has appeared in theatres from Soweto to London, and much of her work has been translated into German, French, Italian, Swahili, and Japanese.

She has travelled extensively in Africa and other parts of the world giving storytelling workshops.

Mhlophe's stories meld folklore, information, current affairs, song, and idiom.

Storytelling is a deeply traditional activity in South Africa, and Mhlophe is one of the few woman storytellers in a country dominated by males.

She does her work through charismatic performances, working to preserve storytelling as a means of keeping history alive and encouraging South African children to read.

She tells her stories in four of South Africa's languages: English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa.

This initiative, established in 2002, is a collaboration with the Market Theatre and READ, a national literacy organisation.

She currently serves as the patron of the ASSITEJ South Africa, the International Association for Theatre for Children and Young People.

She runs a performance space called "The Storytelling Tree" in Durban.

She also works as a motivational speaker.

In 2016, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.

She tells her stories in four of South Africa's languages: English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa, and also helps to motivate children to read.

From 2019, Mhlophe's birthday, 24 October, is recognised as National Storytelling Day in South Africa.

she has been awarded honorary doctorates from seven universities across the world.

These include:

Other recognition of her work includes:

Mhlophe wrote music for her SABC TV series Gcina & Friends