Sandile Memela
Lauds Lauretta Ngcobo’s
Prodigal Daughters
(Plus: Launch Gallery)
The launch of Prodigal Daughters: Stories of South African Women in Exile was held on 23 May at the Mazisi Kunene Foundation in Morningside, Durban. Over 200 guests gathered to admire the literary museum’s rare displays before enjoying a three course dinner, sponsored by eThekwini Municipality, and punctuated with speeches from some of the book’s contributors.
UKZN Press Publisher Debra Primo opened the evening’s proceedings, followed on stage by Lauretta Ngcobo, editor of the collection, and acclaimed storyteller Gcina Mhlophe. Contributors present to offer glimpses of their lives as women in exile included Brigalia Bam, Nomvu Booi, Carmel Chetty and Mathabo Kunene.
This memorable event was captured by photographer Darryl Rowe (see a gallery of his photographs below).
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The DAC‘s Sandile Memela also congratulated Ngcobo on the publication of Prodigal Daughters and highlighted the importance of female voices in African writing:
Comments from Sandile Memela – Chief Director: Marketing & PR, Dept of Arts and Culture
The publication of Prodigal Daughters is a most significant achievement for black women to define who they are and what they have gone through.
Congratulations to our mother, Loretta whom I love and admire. You know my views about the meaning of her life in the South African literary scene. She is a lamp under the bushel but nobody can keep a good woman down.
I am looking to getting the copy. MaLauretta has, over the years, spoken with passion about this creative enterprise to give voice and visibility to African women who were in exile. She desired to do this on their own terms. These women in the struggle have for far too long been defined through their relationship with patriarchal men. Thus they have always been portrayed as flawed in character, an extension of what men lack. To this day, African women are perceived or portrayed as Cinderella’s jealous cousins who are only interested in monied men so that they can buy shoes and bags.
From the invisibility of being comrades to men who hogged all the power, positions and resources in the name of the struggle, to social agents who championed and articulated human rights much better than their male counterparts, to raising children who would be heirs of struggle victory to being first ladies or wives of cabinet ministers, the story of the African women who gave her life to the struggle has yet be told. It is for this reason that this is a significant achievement in the struggle to get our women to tell their own stories.
MaLauretta is, in her own right, a living example of the African woman’s struggle to not only reclaim her power and spiritual resilience but to re-assert her place as Queen in a hostile culture and world. The book will contribute much clarity to terms of discussion on whether we are ready for a Woman President and perhaps help redefine the role of the woman’s league.
In fact, her book should, presumably, be seen and read as a call to African women to make their voices heard and take the power from men who are, largely, messing up the future of their children.
We are aware that in And They Didn’t Die MaLauretta has written fictionally about her own experiences and those of millions of other African women who not only kept the home fires burning when their husbands were away in jail or mines but how they were in the forefront of the struggle for the return of the land and against dompasses, for instance. This book will, unavoidably, urge women to look critically at themselves and where they come from.
Sorry for the ranting, but this was just a little note to say: “Congratulations to Lauretta Ngcobo, a rare female creative intellectual who has long proved herself more equal than her male counterparts.”
– SANDILE MEMELA
