Kopano Matlwa Mabaso is a South African author whose bestselling, prize-winning debut, Coconut, was written when she was twenty-one years old and went on to win the European Union Literary Award and was joint winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. Her second novel, Spilt Milk, was published to high acclaim. Matlwa was selected for the 21 Icons project, recognizing young game changers in South Africa, and in 2015 she won the Aspen Ideas Award for medical innovation. She is a Rhodes Scholar and a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford.

"Explores issues of race, poverty, and gender in post-apartheid South Africa through the eyes of a junior doctor ... When Masechaba finally achieves her childhood dream of becoming a doctor, her ambition is tested as she faces the stark reality of South Africa's public health care system. As she leaves her deeply religious mother and makes friends with the politically-minded Nyasha, Masechaba's eyes are opened to the rising xenophobic tension that carries echoes of apartheid. Battling her inner demons, she must decide if she should take a stand to help her best friend, even if it comes at a high personal cost"--