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         African Women
             Back Cover

The South African, nonfiction version of Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale...These stories show us that women's spirits refuse to be imprisoned forever."    —The Boston Globe

"What courage it took for these three black South African women to tell their stories — and to live their lives! — and for Mark Mathabane to weave their individual stories into this book." — Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University professor and author of You Just Don't Understand

In African Women, the author of the highly acclaimed and bestselling memoir Kaffir Boy presents the deeply moving, often shocking, but ultimately inspiring stories of his grandmother, mother and sister. Coping with abuse, gambling, drunkenness and infidelity from the men they love or have been forced to marry, all three women defy African tradition, and the poverty and violence of life in a modern urban society, to make fulfilling lives for themselves and those they love in the belly of the apartheid beast in South Africa.
(Photo: Mark's mother and sister Florah see the book Kaffir Boy for the first time.)

"A powerful piece of work...It is a pleasure finally to have a book concerned with issues of dire importance to women written sensitively by a man." — Washington Post Book World

"Mathabane shifts his attention from the evils of racism to what may be the still more insidious and intractable problems of sexism as he describes in spare, moving prose the lives of his sister, mother and grandmother." — The Wall Street Journal

"A finely crafted book that makes it easier to understand how the vicious cycles of abuse and oppression of women snowballed under apartheid." — Christian Science Monitor

"A deeply shocking tribute to the historical struggles, sufferings and above all, the courage of women." — Quarterly Black Review of Books

"Memoirs that speak in harrowing detail of growing up female in South Africa...There's no sloganizing; rather, the political is made personal in scenes of daily confrontation between women and men, between black and white."
— Booklist

Dedication:

To African women who, with indomitable courage and undying faith, daily fought to sustain hope in the depths of despair and bondage.

Buy African Women

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Read the Table of Contents
Read the Preface
Read Chapter One

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Books

Kaffir Boy
Kaffir Boy Page
Back Cover
Preface
Chapter One

KB in America
KB in A Page
Back Cover
Chapter One

Love in B&W
Love in B&W
Dust Jacket
Reader Reviews
Preface
Mark's View
Gail's View

African Women
AW Home
Back Cover
Reader Reviews
Preface
Chapter One

Ubuntu (Novel)
Ubuntu Page
Dust Jacket
Chapter One

Miriam's Song
Miriam's Page
Dust Jacket
Dedication
Preface
First Chapter
Reader Reviews