“Does Junior Khanye have enough of a story to warrant a book, will the book have enough information and disclose stories?”
These are some of the questions my friend asked me when I announced that I will be reviewing Junior Khanye’s new book. These are also questions that dominated my mind as I was eating away the pages throughout.
I would say that Ghetto Ninja perfectly answered my friend’s fair or unfair question. Inside the pages of Ghetto Ninja are sad, funny, and educative stories about Junior’s life and I am happy that he decided to document his painful truths.
In Ghetto Ninja- The Junior Khanye Story, author Nikalaos Kirknins narrates the painful yet inspiring story of Junior Khanye’s rise to stardom at an early age, his fall from grace, and how he found redemption.
Junior’s story is well-known for how he ruined his glittering career with Kaizer Chiefs through the abuse of alcohol and many other social ills. However, in this book, he not only takes ownership of how his early poor decisions ruined his career, but he also open up how that affected those close to him, particular his family- something that I found to be refreshing because we just heard how he ruined his career but not how that affected his family.
Perusing through the pages of this book, I was reminded of how a star was born, graced the nation with his great talent, but fell off because of ill discipline and self-control.
Ghetto Ninja is not a book that only aims to remind us of the faults of one man, but one that encourages everyone to take a leaf from Junior’s past mistakes.
I think the only bummer for me is how the story was narrated.
I honestly believe that the story should have been told in first-person narration, that is, Junior telling his own story from the “I” perspective.
Believe me, there’s more authenticity when it is the subject (Junior in this case) telling their own story than when it is the author doing that.
As I was reading some of the quotes attributed to certain people in the book, as a reader, I kept asking myself whether those people really said that or the author is just making them up to keep the story going.
However, if it was Junior saying those quotes in his own words, I would have no reason to even doubt that.
And I strongly believe this is why so many people also struggled to appreciate the previous books of Nikolaos. I strongly believe that he needs to allow his subjects to be able to just tell their own stories from the “I” perspective.
Besides that, Ghetto Ninja is an honest reflection of Junior Khanye’s spirit-healing journey of finding light after years of darkness.