The life story of Winnie Mandela remains one of the great dramas of our times, an ongoing tale of triumphs and tragedies that is still unfolding. In the Cry of Winnie Mandela, a highly acclaimed novel first released in 2003, Njabulo S. Ndebele focuses on four women at a specific period in the history of southern Africa who have spent time waiting for their men to return. Their ordinary, ‘private’ stories are anchored to the more powerful public stories of Penelope, of ancient Greek mythology, who waited eighteen years while her husband Odysseus was away, and Winnie Mandela, who waited for twenty-seven years. The women question themselves and each other about why they waited and what this waiting did to them, leading to a series of extraordinary and haunting ‘conversations’ with one another as well as with Penelope and Winnie.
CONTRIBUTORS: Njabulo S. Ndebele
EAN: 9781770103085
COUNTRY: South Africa
PAGES:
WEIGHT: 320 g
HEIGHT: 198 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Pan Macmillan South Africa
DATE PUBLISHED:
CITY:
GENRE: FICTION / General
WIDTH: 130 cm
SPINE:
Book Themes:
Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary
‘[A work of] extraordinary originality and imaginative power.’ – Nadine Gordimer
Njabulo S. Ndebele is an established scholar, public figure, and author whose critical and creative writing have tackled the effects of the apartheid regime on black communities, the rhetoric of protest, democracy and reconciliation, and the system of higher education in South Africa. He regularly plays the role of a public intellectual through his interventions in the media on topical issues facing South Africa in its ongoing transition. Ndebele served as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town from July 2000 to 2008 and he was inaugurated as the Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg in December 2012. He obtained his Masters degree in English Literature from Cambridge University, in the UK, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy, English and American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Denver, in the USA. Ndebele’s published works include Fools and other Stories (1983, 2006); Rediscovery of the Ordinary (1991, 2006); Bonolo and the Peach Tree (1991); Sarah, Rings and I (1993); Death of a Son (1996); the original edition of The Cry of Winnie Mandela (2003); and Fine Lines from the Box (2007).
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