BOOK REVIEW: Arriving Where One Was Never Expected: Coming In From The Cold – An Autobiography by Bonang Mohale
Autobiographies often begin at the beginning: with birth, lineage, and chronological memory unfolding toward accomplishment. In Coming In From The Cold – An Autobiography, Bonang Mohale disrupts this convention. He does not introduce himself first as a corporate leader, activist, or public intellectual. Instead, he situated himself in the present: as husband to Susan and as father to his two daughters, Nkgono Tshepiso Serialong and Nkgono Maneo Refiooe. This structural decision is deliberate and philosophical. It announces that identity, for Mohale, is relational before it is professional. Image of the book cover from the internet From the outset, the reader encounters a grounded man whose leadership is anchored in humility, honour, and emotional accountability. The naming of his daughters is particularly significant. The prefix “Nkgono,” meaning grandmother, is a deliberate homage to ancestry. Within African naming traditions, names function as living archives;...
