The headline-making Fifty Shades trilogy is proving a massive success locally, with South African housewives clamouring for copies of the erotic novel.

The three books that make up the trilogy have been dubbed “mummy porn” by the media, due to their neatly packaged combination of relatively hardcore erotica, and more traditional romance.

Chronicling  the relationship between an innocent student and a powerful and mysterious businessman, the books have broken sales records around the globe, with a feature film apparently already in the pipeline.

Written by British author Erika Leonard, 49, the books currently occupy three spots on the Exclusive Books’ bestseller list, according to Times Live. A local publisher told the paper that thus far, book stores in SA have ordered 30 000 copies of the books.  Considering that any work of adult  fiction  that sells more than 5000 copies locally is considered a bestseller, it’s obvious that the books are a raging success.

“We have sold 30000 of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy to book stores since mid-April. These books are gathering momentum and we cannot keep up with the [demand] – as stock comes in, it goes out”, said Lyn Riesnik, of local distributors Random House Struik.

With over ten million copies of the trilogy sold globally since their publication, the books rival the Harry Potter franchise and Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ for the title of publishing phenomenon of the century.

The author, a mother of two who uses the pen name  EL James, has described her work as being  ”romantic fantasy” stories that provide woman the opportunity to take a much needed  ”holiday from their husbands”.

Pics courtesy of Facebook