By Mots’elisi Sekonyela
MASERU
Limpho Seeso, 41 born and bred in Mapoteng, Leribe has penned down a memoir around the challenges she faced in child bearing as a gay woman through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). The book is termed “Unbreakable” and was self-published in February 2023.
“The book came about mostly as a result of the frustrations that I went through with the IVF process. I was initially keeping an IVF journal and it developed into something else,” Seeiso said.
Through the memoir, the author aims to raise awareness of the challenges the homosexual people have to go through in accessing services and advocate for more acceptance towards the gay community as well as to give hope to those that might have gone through the same issues.
“Unbreakable is the memoir of a black homosexual woman from Lesotho living in South Africa. Limpho’s journey is full of frustrations and will invoke shock in the reader in how dysfunctional the system is towards homosexuals and how she navigated through the adversities,” she said.
The author said the book is targeted at the queer community, parents and everyone in general. “The book is a story about love, and a reality of the cheesy line “love conquers all”,” she remarked.
Seeiso self-published the book over the counter, with no contract from a publisher and no sponsorships. The book’s distribution and public relations in Lesotho however is handled by a publishing company, Lipsticks and Scars Publishers founded Adv. Thakane Rethabile Shale.
As Lipsticks and Scars publishers our goal is to help writers tell their stories in an authentic way and Unbreakable is just one of the many projects we have this year that we are very excited about “ Shale said.
The company was started in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown . “Unbreakable” is the third books whose logistics they handle. The publisher will handle the launch event of the book as well as it’s distribution. The company engages with authors on contractual agreements with tailor-made fee structures.
I really just love stories and I wanted to read stories that reflect the Basotho experience,” Shale said.
In January, the publisher got into an agreement with a South African partner so as to have more reach into other parts of Southern Africa in terms of publishing and distribution.
“Our first offerings were printed in Morija but like I said with the expansion that we are doing we are now looking at other printing houses,” Shale added.
Seeiso says she has not always been a writer but she has always had passion for reading African stories.
“I’ve been passionate in writing poems growing up. Maybe I have always been a lover, coz they were mostly about love. That passion sort of came back when I met my partner. I also love African stories, top of the list being Nigerian writers. I think they are very passionate about their culture and food, basically everything about their country,” she said.
Seeiso is currently with Gordon Institute of Business Science doing Business Coaching. She says she hopes to coach both in Lesotho and South Africa as this is a much needed skill to enable everyone to live to their potential. Seeiso has experience is in Human Capital with different employers.
“While we do not specifically work with women so far we have not had a male author, our next offering is a children’s book and it’s written by a female teacher