Description
Love and Other Horror Stories is a collection of four short stories and seven poems that turns love inside out, showing its darker, more uncomfortable side. Told through first-person voices, the stories move through abuse, addiction, teenage pregnancy, family dysfunction, and grief, set largely within black South African communities and township life. Rather than romanticising love, the collection sits with its cost: the silence families keep, the harm passed down through generations, and the resilience it takes to survive it. It closes with poetry that turns the same themes inward, reflecting on scars, faith, and the search for peace.
Luleth Makutu is a Limpopo-born, Pretoria raised writer with over a decade of experience. She has honed her craft through spoken word and literature using storytelling as a vessel for truth, healing and reflection. Love and Other Stories is her first solo publication, following her contribution to a 2015 youth anthology alongside other young writers from Guateng high schools.
Her work focuses on the psychological and sociological realities within dysfunctional families, exploring themes of generational trauma, gender-based violence, toxic relationships, and undiagnosed mental illness.
Drawing from personal experience and her Christian faith, Luleth writes for those fighting silent battles, often in fear of being judged or dismissed. She believes in telling everyday stories that may not be glamorous, but are deeply real for herself, for the people she knows, and for anyone who has ever felt unseen.
