African Women

by Mark Mathabane

In African Women, the author of the highly acclaimed and best-selling memoir Kaffir Boy tells 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. Granny is sold to her future husband in their homeland - he pays the traditional bride price, lobola, agreed upon by their two families - and after fathering her three children, he deserts her for another woman. When Granny's daughter Geli comes of age, it's not surprising that Granny forces her to marry an older man, Jackson Mathabane, who might be less likely to desert a young wife. The marriage of Geli and Jackson is fraught with drama from the very beginning. Gel