A Study Guide for Sindiwe Magona's "Mother to Mother," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

A searing novel, told in letter form, that explores the South African legacy of apartheid through the lens of a woman whose Black son has just murdered a white woman Mother to Mother is a novel with depth, at once an emotional plea for compassion and understanding, and a sharp look at the impacts of colonialism and apartheid on South African families. Inspired by the true story of Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl's murder, the book takes the form of a letter to the victim’s mother. The murderer’s mother, Mandisa, speaks of a life marked by oppression and injustice. Through her writing, Mandisa reveals a colonized society that not only allowed but perpetuated violence against women and impoverished Black South Africans under the reign of apartheid. This book is not an apology for the murder but rather something more. It seeks to connect, through empathy and storytelling, one pained mother with another who is grief-stricken and in mourning. A beautifully written exploration of the society that bred such violence, Mother to Mother will resonate with readers interested in understanding and ending racial injustice, as well as the lasting colonial foundations of oppression.

A simple argument guides this book: motherhood is the place in our culture where we lodge, or rather bury, the reality of our own conflicts. By making mothers the objects of both licensed idealization and cruelty, we blind ourselves to the world’s iniquities and shut down the portals of the heart. Mothers are the ultimate scapegoat for our personal and political failings, for everything that is wrong with the world, which becomes their task (unrealizable, of course) to repair. Moving commandingly between pop cultural references such as Roald Dahl’s Matilda to insights on motherhood in the ancient world and the contemporary stigmatization of single mothers, Jacqueline Rose delivers a groundbreaking report into something so prevalent we hardly notice. Mothers is an incisive, rousing call to action from one of our most important contemporary thinkers.

How did West African literature in English begin? What influences affected its birth and development? How much does it imitate European models? How is traditional African culture influencing modern writing? What kind of experiments are being tried? These are some of the questions, relevant to African writing throughout the continent, which this critical study discusses by examining the most significant work in verse, prose, drama, children's literature, journalism and political writing in West Africa. The author examines the writing of major figures such as Soyinka, Achebe, Okara, Clark, Tutuola and Ekwensi as well as that of authors whose work is not as widely known.

This powerful and widely acclaimed autobiography of Sindiwe Magona's early years in South Africa gives an account of her eventful first 23 years--a candid story of triumph and endurance in the face of hardships relentlessly reinforced by the apartheid system.

An anthology of short stories by African writers from a dozen countries. The subjects range from war and politics to problems with domestics and African humor. Some stories were written in English, others are translations from Arabic, French and Portuguese. All were written in the latter part of the 20th century.