Description
Written as a ‘letter from a Xhosa Grandmother’, to record her life in South Africa for her grandchildren so that they do not lose their own history, this is Sindiwe Magona’s account of her eventful first twenty-three years. Her early years were in a Transkei village, and her childhood and adolescence on the Cape Flats, in Retreat and later Guguletu, where she was poor but secure in a loving family. All this is described with humour, zest and enjoyment of township life. But then came the disaster of teenage pregnancy and forced a change of all immediate plans for a teaching career. She tells a candid, unself-pitying story of triumph endurance, in the face of hardships relentlessly reinforced by the apartheid system.
After achieving degrees from UNISA and Columbia University, Sindiwe Magona worked for the United Nations in New York. This articulate, spirited and poignant ‘letter’ is her first book.
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