​understanding of others. If only – and this was the big one - they could express themselves and their beliefs so articulately and with such passion as Shanti. Shanti is the young woman, the protagonist of this book who at the tender age of fourteen makes the decision, in order to avoid a forced and arranged marriage, to sail from the Madras Presidency in India to Port Natal in South Africa to become an indentured labourer in the British-owned sugarcane plantations. A reminder, she was fourteen years old. She was alone. And this was 1916. Imagine! Just imagine, apart from anything else, the interminable sea voyage shared with the hope, struggling and suffering of a shipful of others.
There is a speech, a full page long, that Shanti gives towards the end of the book, that is nothing short of sizzling. To an unsympathetic, largely hostile audience, she delivers a heartfelt and impassioned cry, a demand for justice, rights and understanding (and all this in English, not her mother tongue), that had me punching the air in her honour. If only, I thought, all young women could find the words to express themselves so powerfully and clearly.
To my mind, Joanne Joseph’s book epitomises power and passion. It seems to me that the passion she had for writing this story – a collective of so many people’s narratives, and one that for her was triggered by an internet image she found of her maternal great-grandmother, was what led her to undergo a total immersion into the ‘rabbit-holes’ of her family’s history as well as the deep waters of specialist academics who have written extensively on Indian indenture in the 19th century. In turn the passion gave her the power to piece together this layered story in way that makes it so accessible.  It also enabled her to breathe power and passion into Shanti making her both impressive and inspirational. If only young women, then and now, could have half as much confidence and clout. If ever I were looking for a speech writer Joanne Joseph would be top of my list.

​of real women known to the author’. Which was a bit of a shock. The things that protagonist Obianuju goes through at the hands of her dapper, church-going husband shouldn’t happen to…well, just shouldn’t happen. And what she tolerates from the mouth of her traditional and unbending mother just shouldn’t be said. That it all takes place between 1978 and 1999 makes you hope that perhaps these things don’t happen anymore. But hey…lets look at our own GBV statistics and opinions on what constitutes a woman’s role before we start pointing fingers.
The years covered mean that it post-dates the Biafran war (1967-1970) that if you read Chimamanda Adichi’s ‘alf of a Yellow Sun. you may remember was harrowingly central. But the stain of war, any war, lingers and the Biafran conflict crops up as one of the themes in this book. Interestingly Aiwanose participated in Adichi’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Writing Workshop. So who knows what influences or not may have been at play, but this book feels very much her own and based on what she has witnessed.
One of the other relationship themes that runs through ‘Become a Woman’ is that of female friends. Well in the book ‘Wahala’, also a debut novel by Anglo-Nigerian writer Nikki May, a group of ‘inseparable mixed-race friends’ living in London take the leading roles. So it’s full-on female. And set in the present day, it’s about as contemporary as it gets, ‘Boo tapped her nails on the steel of her laptop’, and life is a million miles from decades-past downtown Lagos. ‘… Simi spent Saturday afternoon in the Cowshed spa… three hours – salt scrub, reflexology, deep tissue massage and hydro-gel mask facial.’ But it’s also laced with Nigerian nostalgia ‘You’re such a coconut. I’ll have amala with ogbomo and assorted meat.’ ‘Jollof rice and chicken for me,’ said Ronke. She couldn’t bring herself to order pounded yam in front of skinny, glamourous Isobel.’ And then there’s the inimitable dialogue, ‘Na your choice be dat. I go make you handbag and headwrap. The aso ebi be like entry ticket – it shows you belong.’
What the two books have in common is that they are both indicators of the painful and poignant world of women – but unlike ‘Become a woman’, ‘Wahala’ is wickedly, if agonizingly, funny.
The reason for talking about them in the same breath so to speak, is that they are both so very much  ‘of Nigeria’ – and both offer such female insight. In addition they are a testimony to how culture can impact your life as a woman – then as now, and wherever you are.
Oh, and while there’s no glossary at the back of ‘Wahala’, there are some recipes to add flavour, including ‘Ronke’s Jollof Rice’.

​ strong, hard working role model mother who ploughed, sewed, cooked and cared diligently and lovingly for her large family. Pindiwe was the last born of seven children. She reflects on what should have been an idyllic rural life – eating vegetables fresh from the fields, cows available to be slaughtered in celebration, surrounded by mountains and rivers. But the shadow of political injustice was long and heavy. Many of her siblings ended up spending more time in exile or in prison than at home and as a family at one point they escaped to Lesotho. They paid a high price for their beliefs.
Some of her siblings fell victim to alcohol, Aids and abuse – and her father, despite his stature and values, became a philanderer. All of this made things considerably worse for her uncomplaining mother who, as Pindiwe laments, never got to enjoy the fruits of her children becoming successful citizens.
It’s a tough story, and as I read it, I was conscious of its echo, not just of the mountains, but in the stories I’ve heard snatches of from so many people who lived and grew up in the apartheid era. Although she writes little about her own journey, other than touching on it here and there, the book is also a vehicle for her to express her own feelings about family and about the social situation, ills and solutions, in general.
It is undoubtedly a challenge to write such a book – dredging back through unhappy memories and troubled times, but its also an opportunity to reflect on and express gratitude for love and loyalty. As the youngest, and one of the few surviving members of the family, it seems appropriate that it was Pindiwe who chose to pull together this family memoir for which I applaud her.  It must be said though that not all ‘unsung champions’ to whom she pays tribute, would have the resources, strength, support and skill to undertake such a task, but she has certainly set an example. And even if they never get into print, one hopes it would be healing for others who follow it.
Finally she talks of the living monument she hopes to create in her home village as well as the Bhelekazi Foundation she plans to set up to give back to her community. Wishing her well and watching this space​.

tell this story, and getting there was a slow and painful journey.
Liz McGregor is a journalist and an author, so constructing material into a logical sequence is her craft, but one can only imagine in this case, also an emotional challenge. She opens the book with the scattering of her mother’s ashes. The whole family had gathered for the memorable occasion. Two days later, their father was dead. The subsequent tale she tells weaves from the grisly details of the murder itself, to the trial, to the verdict and through her attempt to get her life back after the horror of it all. She tells how she subsequently writes a book on rugby, finds love, suffers serious injuries, surgery and crippling pain following a freak accident involving a recovering alcoholic. She seeks out help as grief and rage come back to haunt her, she is coming apart – ‘but I have always written my way out of despair’ she says. And this book would be the proof.
In it she also looks back over her father’s life and his dynamic, unorthodox approach to it. She looks into his ancestry and visits Scotland. She reflects back on her own life and significant times with him. The turning point came in January 2018 she says, ‘I steel myself to start my exploration of Cecil Thomas’s life, even though the very thought of it sets my nerves jangling, exacerbated by an ongoing insomnia.’ The exploration is intense. Obsessive. It takes her to Tulbagh. It takes her deep into the dark and murky world of prison, the Numbers gangs and the slippery field of restorative justice. She is determined to meet her father’s killer face to face to finally find out the truth of why he did it, so long after the litany of maddening lies that were heard in court.
The prison system throws up obstruction and cul de sacs, and then she meets Chris Malgas – ‘an anomalous figure in fatigues with a soldierly bearing’ who knows his way around the innards of incarceration. Together with Alan, her now husband, Chris supports her through this quest that she describes as ‘to hear my father’s voice one more time.’ To hear him ‘describing the events leading to his death’. She will never hear that, and ultimately will never know the truth. But what she has unearthed along the way, is an extraordinarily revealing account of one good man’s life, beliefs and finally his murder – one of so many thousand that happen every year in this complex country. Sadly, it makes for compelling reading. ​

​THE LAST CHECKMATE by Gabriella SAAB published by William Morrow (fiction)
Daughters of the Labyrinth by Ruth Padel published by Corsair (fiction)
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz by Lucy Adlington published by Hodder&Stoughton (non-fiction)
Reviewed by Beryl Eichenberger
There is a plethora of Holocaust books, some considered good, some considered tasteless, others criticised, lambasted and suggestive of too much fiction thus undermining the horror of the time. While reviewers may be subjective, their own or their family history may well inform their views, in the end the opinion rests with the reader; how they assimilate and use the information.
In terms of fiction novelists may embroider their stories to make facts palatable, but the blend of fact, its accuracy and the extensive research required to marry it with fiction should never underplay reality. What is apparent, now that Holocaust survivors are passing on, is that there is a younger generation seeking to find and tell these stories.  We know that many survivors could not speak about their experiences and their stories so often died with them. There is a curiosity and passion that this younger generation display in wanting to honour those who survived, thus ensuring that the world will not forget.
Reading Holocaust novels is to read the pain etched on the pages, particularly if there is a personal connection. So please forgive me if I try to take a pragmatic view, a neutral stance on your reading choices. In keeping the memory alive, we are reminding the public of a horror that should NEVER happen again.  Sadly war and genocide are a fact of life  – it is happening as we speak; we can never deny this. Books on the subject form the platform for knowledge; can perhaps be the change,but more than anything they are a legacy for the future.
Yom HaShoah or World Holocaust Day is commemorated annually on April 28 and in the light of those candles of memory I wanted to talk briefly about three books read recently. Each has a special link to the Holocaust. From skills that could keep you alive, to haunting memories and secrets affecting a family history in present day; these stories demonstrate the strength of the human spirit.
Gabriella Saab’s debut novel “The Last Checkmate’ is a powerful story of surviving Auschwitz. A young Polish resistance worker Maria Florkowska is interned in Auschwitz but she is a master chess player and it is this that keeps her alive. Each game she plays with the sadistic camp deputy, who she discovers deliberately oversaw her family’s slaughter, could be her last. Her game plan for revenge moves the pieces of the story to a climactic close after liberation. The measured writing does not spare the agonies of prisoners, what people had to do to survive and what liberation brought with it. We are drawn into the suffering of Father Kolbe, who sacrificed his own life to save a prisoner and in 1982 was elevated to sainthood. It is a complex story told in vivid prose. Saab’s grasp of historical fiction melds her characters with those that existed and her research is exemplary. Read the Author’s notes as they shed light on the depth of her research. This is an author to watch.
Ruth Padel is a British poet and author and her writing has a rhythm that reflects this. Evocative, haunting and echoing lines paint a picture of buried secrets on Crete, an island full of its own myths and legends. ‘Daughters of the Labyrinth’ is set in the present but it explores the depth of buried memories, of stories never told, loss and denial. Sixty-something international artist Ri was born in Crete, brought up as a Christian but left for London in her 20s. Sponsored by the family friend Mr Michael she studied art and has made a successful career, something her Cretan mother Sophia seems always to resent.  After the tragic death of her Jewish husband David, the news her mother is very ill draws her back to the island. It is her father who starts telling Ri her mother Sophia’s real story, one that saw her hidden throughout the war and her community driven from Crete. Coming to grips with this answers many questions and confirms instincts but brings with it confusion and finally peace. Unfurling the story is a walk through life’s labyrinth and Padel’s writing evokes the many moods and colours of this journey.  Padel asks the question: How well do we know our own family…something we may well ask ourselves. A rich, satisfying and thoughtful novel.
I grew up in the ‘rag trade’ so fashion was part of my life for many years. When I watched an interview with author Lucy Adlington on her book ‘The Dressmakers of Auschwitz’ I was intrigued – who would have thought of a fashion salon in the heart of one of the most notorious concentration camps. This is the true story of the women who sewed to survive and it is quite remarkable. Adlington’s diverse sources, her tenacity in finding the truth and being able to interview some of the last surviving seamstresses brings to life what became known as the Upper Tailoring Studio. Started by the very fashion conscious Hedwig Höss, wife of the infamous Rudolf Höss at the height of the Holocaust, twenty-five, mostly Jewish young inmates sewed garments for the Nazi élite. The hypocrisy of being beautifully dressed while prisoners were stripped to humiliating nudity cannot be lost on the reader. The friendships these women forged lasted long after the war and Adlington weaves this little known story within the context of the Nazi policies; the greed, exploitation and cruelty which drove the regime. It is a fascinating piece of history meticulously written and researched.    
These are but a tiny sliver of what is available but are chapters of the legacy library that we must continue building.  

​use in a phrase. Occasionally I lost the thread of the story by getting so caught up in the words. It’s been pointed out that the author is a poet, by which you might think her work might be flowery, filled with mystic analogy. But it isn’t that so much as the way she places words alongside one another: ‘There was nothing wrong with his body, except that a feeling that a clawed creature from prehistory had it pinioned.’ (That’s not necessarily the best example, but as a I scanned back to find you one, I kept getting caught up again reading). Wait – I just found another one: ‘I lay on my bed aching, my spirits scraping the loose pebble bed at the bottom of my soul.’ Okay, that one might be a bit poety, but hey – is it not truly evocative. It is the very architecture of her sentences, paragraphs – the construction of the whole book really - that’s been so very thoughtfully crafted. With knowledge. And experience.
I wept for that too – the knowledge, the experience. All the little, and big, things that she has clearly learnt and absorbed growing up – I love it that she remembers Vandy saying that something or someone had ‘gone for a Burton’ – no one says that anymore. That she refers to the feather in yankee doodles cap that looks like macaroni – though the image it accompanies of intestines seeping from a dead man’s body is a haunting one. I tried hard to shake it off.
I wept for the dialogue – though sometimes I laughed, or nodded in approval at its nuance or irony. She is a listener, is Finuala. Not for just what and the way in which something is said, but for what else is unsaid. Or implied – hinted at or hidden. ‘I am under no obligation to use my genius’ said Paddy. ‘How very dramatic of you,’ said Vandy. ‘What an excellent moment for a prop.’ Again, perhaps not the best examples, but it was fun running the search.
I wept and shook my head in amazement at the depth of research. Who, of this generation can know the horrors of WWII battlefields (though God knows we will have enough images of Ukranian devastation to last to eternity). But it’s not just Paddy’s battle with battle, and its aftermath, that she has put her mind through – it’s old schools and churches, hospitals and circus tents, it’s even advertising agencies and the downtrodden of Marseille. The streets of London and bars of Cape Town. It’s also a reference library of book titles from the past – The Plague and I, The Alexandria Quartet, Jude the Obscure, Moominland Midwinter, agonizingly an outdated Writer’s & Artists Yearbook…a magazine called Outspan and an even more old-fashioned women’s radio programme. And that’s not to mention music bristling with nostalgia – Greensleeves, Neil Young’s Heart of Gold – Jaques Brel’s If We Only Have Love. Sorry, at this point, I might just weep again. You will find out why when you read it yourself.
I realise I have told nothing of the story of The Man Who Loved Crocodile Tamers,  but honestly to trot out what it’s about would most certainly be to understate the plots windings. Finuala herself gave a presentation on How This Novel Came About which I was lucky enough to attend. It was not a straight path, and there were many avenues leading off, back and forth. But the kernel was the fact that her own father had once loved a Crocodile Tamer (though in fact they were alligators) called Koringa. An eccentric wench, with whom he had once been infatuated, and who later appeared at the church to threaten his wedding to his new love, Vandy. It’s an indelible nugget of real-life family legend that no writer could resist. But it is a story of many layers and Finuala has worked her way through all of them in search of the truth - perhaps finding it, perhaps creating it  - but certainly unearthing a lot more besides.
Perhaps the most endearing components of the books construction are the Fragments from a writer’s diary. These are interspersed between the chapters that start in Salisbury Plain, 1917, and weave across the world through a host of other destinations like Harrogate and Leicester, 1928, Khataba, Egypt 1943 to The Farm, Lakeside 1966 closing in Kalk Bay, 1976. They are not Finuala’s own diary fragments she insists – but those of the writer who is putting together this book with Doubt sitting on the chaise longue, the opinions of her siblings and her own inner voices with which to contend. These fragments are revealing and priceless and make you want to rush at her, or not her, with a reassuring hug. ‘How can you ever be sure another piece of cutting, adding or rephrasing wouldn’t improve it?’ Feel her pain. Feel her poetry. Read her book.

misbehave badly in some circumstances.
It all starts with sixteen-year-old Luntu been given a holiday project by his teacher, Mr Bali Silal. The assignment: Luntu must write his life story. This, according to his teacher, will help improve his writing skills and his English, teach him how history is recorded and may encourage even deeper self-exploration. Great you say. Not according to Luntu who believes that the assignment is boring and a waste of time. Not when he should be enjoying his July holidays in peace and preparing for the year’s final terms. “It is not matric, it’s true, but all the teachers say that Grade 11 is the most important academic year. Matric is just revision!” he protests.
The first time Luntu met Mr Bali it’s after the Easter holidays, on his first Term 2 Grade 10 English Class. Mr Bali, having taken over from Ms Clare “who left to have a baby”, is his new English and history teacher. He is also his new class teacher. Luntu was not aware of this when he and a friend entered the classroom. “Hey, who is this mophead?” are the first words Luntu uttered. It was downhill from there on. He disagreed with his teacher almost daily. You see, Luntu was loved by all his teachers and had never been challenged before. He enjoyed success and excelled in public speaking. He joined the debating club and in Grade 9 was his class representative on the Student Leadership Council. He was even entrusted to show visitors and funders around the school. All this changed when Mr Bali arrived. And they were at loggerheads as the new teacher saw right through him. That he was all a big act.
What makes the book fun and an easy read is its format. You are reading Luntu’s daily email to his teacher. And each day he covers a different subject. Why Do We Study History? Secrets of The Female Body, Revealed. Romance Is Dead. Mr Bali Loses His Cool. These are some of his colourful topics. He does his writings at an “internet café” which is basically a container filled with computers where one pays money to use one of them. From his daily entries you get to see who this young man is and his struggles. He lost his mother at a young age. He doesn’t know who his father is. He lives with his blind gogo and they survive on her grant and the special grant he gets for being an orphan. He goes to Walter Sisulu High School – a school where most learners manage to pass their matric, unlike other township schools where many fail. He has big dreams for himself but he’s also longing for a father.
The book covers some of the pressing issues faced by many teenagers in this country. It’s frank on teen love and life. It talks about sex, teenage pregnancy, sugar daddies, HIV/Aids, poverty, peer pressure and death. If you manage to get your hands on the book, please read the entry with the subject: The Power of Hair. I caught myself Laughing Out Loud. It’s a thin book and it’s both brilliant and creative. You can’t put it down once you start reading it. ​

​magic but there are those practitioners of bad magic who cast their spells to change the course of innocent lives, wickedly adding spice and drama to the story. But let’s go back a bit to set the scene of this story.
The Owens family have been cursed – way back in the 1600s when Maria Owens was thwarted in love. “Beware of love” – a curse invoked that, over the centuries has ensured that the Owens family have had to hide their loves, escape into new identities and take drastic steps to  thwart the curse. But it is the 21st Century and the new Owens generation is unaware of their witchcraft lineage and all that it entails. Beloved matriarch Aunt Jet hears the death watch beetle – a sign that her time is near - the answer to breaking the curse is within her grasp but the path has to be laid.  Her great niece Kylie has fallen in love and history is busy repeating itself as Gideon, her boyfriend is run over. With his life in the balance only breaking the curse will save him and Kylie is discovering that she isn’t exactly who she thought she was; neither is her mother Sally or her sister Antonia.  Hidden powers are acknowledged and, with the remaining elderly Aunt Franny, the whole family is galvanised into action to save their future.  
This is a racy adventure story taking in the Massachusetts of the present, trailing into the Salem of the past, bringing us to the dark underbelly of London’s black magic circles, a secret library, books that burn you when touched, the Book of the Raven- holding secrets that men will die for, the reappearance of brother Vincent and simply an enchanting story that will have you under its spell from beginning to end. Across the continents we follow the imaginative characters to the final conclusion and come full circle to a wonderful finale to this quartet of novels.
What I love most about these books is the research that Hoffman has put into them. She brings healing potions of herbs that we all know, introduces us to Grimoires (magic books) and the good spells (which frankly, I wanted to try!)
Magic has for centuries influenced the cultures of the world, having a role in religion, literacy and tradition. But above all the message is very clear.  Good magic outweighs the evil and the values of healing, help and love are those that we should aspire to. Poetic, imaginative beyond the norm , sensual and totally absorbing this is a book that allows you to believe the unbelievable.
(The series: Magic Lessons, The Rules of Magic, , Practical Magic, and The Book of Magic - published by Scribner)