Brooding Clouds is a posthumous collection of short stories and poems that were written as a prequel to Phaswane Mpe's acclaimed bestseller, ""Welcome to Our Hillbrow"". In these thematically linked stories, we meet the organic roots of the emblematic characters and concerns of the later novel. Written with an expressive simplicity that evokes the rural soul of tiny Tiragalong and its neighbouring village of Nobody, Mpe's stories speak out strongly on issues close to his heart.The poems form a tandem narrative that is gritty, topical and observant and which articulates the dilemmas of inner city living, along with the broader conundrums of Tiragalong, Hillbrow and South Africa.