---
title: "20 Questions with Naledi Mashishi"
description: "Meet Naledi Mashishi, one of the Johannesburg bureaus’ newest impressive additions. She’s an accomplished journalist, the author of the novel Invisible Strings, and was named one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans for her work fact-checking Covid-19 misinformation. (She’s also a shameless sucker for Netflix reality shows – Love is Blind, anyone?)."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "20 Questions"
author: "Daily Maverick"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/dailymaverick/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-07-24-20-questions-with-naledi-mashishi/"
published: "2025-07-24T09:59:59"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 447
---

# 20 Questions with Naledi Mashishi

> Meet Naledi Mashishi, one of the Johannesburg bureaus’ newest impressive additions. She’s an accomplished journalist, the author of the novel Invisible Strings, and was named one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans for her work fact-checking Covid-19 misinformation. (She’s also a shameless sucker for Netflix reality shows – Love is Blind, anyone?).

By Daily Maverick · Published 24 July 2025, 11:59 SAST

## Key points
- Meet Naledi Mashishi, one of the Johannesburg bureaus’ newest impressive additions. She’s an accomplished journalist, the author of the novel Invisible Strings, and was named one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans for her work fact-checking Covid-19 misinformation.
- Johannesburg journalist Naledi Mashisi answers 20 questions for Maverick Insiders.

## Content

**Favourite book. Of all time and recently?**

My favourite book of all time is The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. More recently, I really enjoyed My Body by Emily Ratajkowski and How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney.

**Favourite film. Of all time and recently?**

I’m a big fan of horror. My favourite film of all time is The Exorcist (1973) and more recently it’s Late Night with the Devil (2023).

**Favourite series. Of all time and recently?**

Of all time it’s Sex and the City (the original. And Just Like That doesn’t exist to me). More recently, Adolescence.

**What is the most random thing you’ve ordered online?**

A Korean skincare collagen wrap mask.

**What is the last thing on your phone that you took a screenshot of?**

It was a joke tweet about Donald Trump’s alleged relations with Bill Clinton to share with my friends.

**What app do you spend the most time on?**

X (unfortunately).

**What’s your favourite piece of trivia?**

Grass emits a chemical when it’s being cut as a distress signal to other plant forms. So the smell of freshly cut grass is functionally the smell of the grass screaming.

**What’s the weirdest superstition you secretly believe in?**

If you talk about your plans before you’ve set them into motion you risk jinxing them.

**If you could relive one specific experience, what would it be?**

The first time I went on a solo vacation, which was a Contiki trip to Vietnam. It was both exciting and scary to be on the other side of the world, away from my family for the first time.

**Window seat or aisle seat?**

Window seat.

**If you could live as someone else for the day, who would it be and why?**

Rihanna, so I could have access to her money and her wardrobe.

**Career highlight?**

Travelling to New York City for the first time to attend a meeting at the UN in 2022.

**What are people always surprised to learn about you?**

That I’m socially awkward.

**You’ve just been arrested. What crime were you likely to have committed?**

Stealing clothes from Rihanna’s wardrobe.

**If you weren’t working in your current role, what industry would you be in?**

I’d probably be an editor at a publishing company and publish fiction.

**What is the most-worn item in your wardrobe?**

My Doc Martens.

**What’s the best advice you’ve received?**

To use incognito mode when buying tickets and booking hotel stays so the site doesn’t store cookies and start raising the prices every time I return to it.

**Name one person you admire?**

Toni Morrison.

**What’s your current guilty pleasure?**

Terrible Netflix reality shows. I’m a sucker for Love is Blind.