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— OUBAS original fiction

Permission to Become.

Permission to Become is available in nine languages, and Episode 01 of its animated screen adaptation is available to rent.

A gifted Black South African child chooses engineering when the education system has reserved the profession for others — and learns that entry into the economy is tolerated more readily than ownership.

The journey

Five parts, one life

  1. Part I

    The Child Outside the Gate

    A boy who understands invisible systems meets the first closed gate.

  2. Part II

    Permission to Learn

    Delay becomes preparation on a longer road through Africa.

  3. Part III

    Inside the Engine Room

    Professional mastery inside institutions that did not expect him.

  4. Part IV

    Building Without Permission

    From a shared desk to enterprises worth noticing.

  5. Part V

    What the System Could Not Take

    What remains when control is contested: knowledge, record and succession.

Published now

The novel in nine languages

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From page to screen

One story, four forms

NovelAvailable now

Permission to Become

One novel in five parts · nine languages

A novel told in close third person, following Sibusiso Mhlabeni from a village classroom to the engine rooms of industry and the boardrooms that decide who owns what is built.

Nine languages · free preview

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Limited seriesIn development

Permission to Become: The Temporary Badge

Dramatic pilot; later episodes subject to demand

Inside a factory that needs his knowledge but withholds his status, Sibusiso must prove why one machine keeps failing—and decide whether recognition is enough.

Not yet on sale.

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Screen episodeAvailable now

Episode 01: The Boy and the Broken Radio

Narrated animated short · 4 min 30 s · English with captions

A child repairs a discarded radio and discovers that the difference between silence and a voice is sometimes one broken path — and sometimes a gate deliberately kept closed. The first screen episode from the world of Permission to Become.

Nine languages · free preview

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Feature filmIn development

Permission to Become

One feature film

From an empty school laboratory to the engine rooms of industry and the construction of a public counter-archive, Permission to Become is an African story of enterprise, evidence and the right to build.

Not yet on sale.

View details →

Characters

Family, mentors and allies

Sibusiso Mhlabeni
Protagonist. Electrical and systems engineer, born 1957 in the fictional KwaZulu-Natal town of eMkhathini.
Nomvula Mhlabeni
His mother, a schoolteacher who protects intellectual ambition.
Thandi Mhlabeni
His wife, a commercial realist who sees risks he overlooks.
Lwazi Mhlabeni
His daughter, later the keeper of the family archive.
Professor Elias Maseko
Mentor at a neighbouring-country university.
Kenji Arata
International engineering mentor on a power-station assignment.
Naledi Khumalo
Co-founder and operational counterweight.

The story is set within fictional institutions — schools, universities, an engineering group, a power station and financiers — whose pressures come from incentives, networks and inherited power rather than any single secret organisation.

Historical context

The story draws on the real social conditions of apartheid-era South Africa, including racial restrictions on education and professions, and follows their consequences into the decades that followed.

Looking for our documentary publications? Visit the OUBAS Bookstore.