Poppie's contented childhood ends when she marries, moves to Cape Town and later is forced to resettle apart from her husband. The drama of the Soweto and Sharpeville uprisings are vividly portrayed.

Imperial Leather chronicles the dangerous liaisons between gender, race and class that shaped British imperialism and its bloody dismantling. Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power.

Many teachers of African studies have found novels to be effective assignments in courses. In this guide, teachers describe their favourite African novels - drawn from all over the continent - and share their experiences of using them in the classroom.

Poppie Nongena's arduous journey covers 40 years of South Africa's history, sweeping through the riots of Sharpeville, Soweto and Cape Town, on to an indefinite but unpromising future. The plot reflects the brutality and injustice of the Apartheid system, while Elsa Joubert's characterisations reflects the courage and fortitude of people in the face of hardship and difficulty. Poppie's contented childhood in the Cape's countryside came to an end when she married a migrant worker, and was forced by the authorities to move with him and their young family to the unfamiliar and bewildering city of Cape Town. No sooner had she established her roots in the new township, when the laws changed and she was informed of her obligation to relocate to the Ciskei, her husband's homeland. He, as a migrant worker, was permitted to remain in the Cape to work. Over a ten-year period, Poppie fought the heinous 'pass law' system, winning limited extensions to the permit that would allow her to live and work in Cape Town and enable her to keep the family together and provide an education for her children. Her own anger was shared by thousands and inevitably the brooding undercurrent of discontent exploded throughout South Africa. Suddenly, there were no further extensions. Poppie and her children were forcibly removed from their home and 'resettled' in a new township, hundreds of miles away near East London. The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena is an epic tale of the endless adversity and struggle of a humble black woman under Apartheid laws. Poppie emerges from being a simple country girl to becoming an archetypal heroine of South Africa.

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