Zukiswa Wanner’s Men of the South (2010) is a story of three men in contemporary South Africa, whose lives are linked by a woman called Slindile.

Mzilikazi (Mzi), Mfundo and Slindile (Sli) grew up together in a small town during the apartheid era. Mzilikazi is now a senior executive and a married man who seems to have the ideal marriage and family. Mfundo is a struggling musician and Sli’s boyfriend, a medical doctor with aspirational ideals.

Tinyae, who joins the trio in their adult lives, is a highly qualified but underpaid immigrant from Zimbabwe and a frequent victim of hostility towards African “foreigners.” After a stunted career path, he realises that the only way for him to get job security and citizenship is to marry a South African.

So he sets his sights on Grace, an infatuated receptionist from an NGO where he previously worked.

The four young adults are finding that adult life can be complicated, with difficult choices and consequences that will test their friendship.

The story is arranged as individual narrations of the lives of Sli and the three men. Through their experiences, we explore the meaning of friendship, love and the social expectations that define success and manhood in South Africa.

In a deeper context, the book examines gender roles, homophobia and xenophobia. Are anti-immigrant sentiments the result of high unemployment — over 25 per cent — or because of mental inertia among some people who remain, as Mfundo puts it, “stuck in a comfort zone, waiting for the government or someone else to do something for them?”

And why is it all right to have housewives and not stay-at-home fathers?

Wanner, 40, looks at homosexuality and the associated cultural prohibitions in many African societies, even in South Africa with its constitutional protection for sexual rights.

She is able to address relevant issues with a sense of humour and compassion that keeps the novel from getting too gloomy.

The book moves along at a lively pace and the main characters are easy to relate to.

Nor do you get the sense that Wanner has struggled to present a male perspective.

Zambian-born Wanner is the daughter of a Zimbabwean mother and South African father. In 2015, she was selected for the Hay Festival’s Africa39 list that celebrates promising young writers from Africa south of the Sahara who are under the age of 40. This is Wanner’s third novel.

In 2011, Men of the South was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in the Africa Region.