South African/Canadian author of This Book Betrays My Brother and playwright Kagiso Lesego Molope shared with the audience how her book was born as a love letter of some sort to support women who have gone through the drama of being blamed and ostracised for standing up to their abusers. She writes on support of such women and questions the blind loyalty of the world to people who do these terrible things, but are somehow still praised and respected.

Author of My Sister the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite spoke on the complexity of sibling relationships and how that dynamic furthered the emotional rollercoaster of her book.

Kagiso Molope spoke on how South Africa wasn’t ready to move to the point where issues surrounding women’s bodies and sexual abuse is discussed and dealt with yet, reminiscing on an experience she had during a book festival where men verbally attacked her. She also discussed the dilemma of blind loyalty to people, especially celebrated and loved family relations and bringing judgement to same people.

Oyinkan Braithwaite took the audience through her journey from studying Creative Writing and Law at Kingston University to being an editor, self-publishing some short stories and ultimately the process of publishing her book My Sister the Serial Killer.

Ozoz Sokoh read excerpts from both books, then spoke on how familiar and relatable the setting of both books were. The authors answered questions centred on human complexity in emotions such as jealousy, loyalty and love.

Members of the audience asked questions on the authors’ plot setting in modern day and familiar cities and how that influenced the writing of these two books, the inclusion of social media and some political decay that was highlighted in these books.

Oyinkan Braithwaite ended by saying her book shouldn’t be used as an accessory to murder and Kagiso Molope made it clear that she didn’t have a brother.