Synopsis

 

In August 1993, Fullbright scholar Amy Biehl was killed in Cape Town by a group of black youths incited by an upsurge of ‘anti-white’ sloganeering. That tragedy provoked ‘Mother to Mother  where  the killer’s mother addresses the mother of the victim and tries, through speaking to her pain, to gain an understanding of her son by recalling both his life and hers within the world of apartheid. The graphic account of life and culture in a black township during the apartheid years is both poignant and at the same time, in Magona’s vibrant style, extremely lively.

 

Reviews

 

"Mother to Mother is a stunning novel; Magona has succeeded in her grand ambition to write a story of healing and confrontation. She has written a graceful, terrible story; it is an eloquent indictment of Apartheid and a passionate lament over the loss of Amy Biehl's life." 

— Angela Salas, The Boston Book Review

 

"As a lament for the terrible legacy of apartheid, the novel is surely a tour de force. As a story of individuals attempting to deal with choices made and perhaps regretted, it is a moving work of fiction."

— Lee Milazzo, Dallas Morning News

 

"Gripping. . . . Points to a redemptive hope for those who can come together for healing, even when they have been bound together by sorrow. The writer's own courage in writing this novel is evidence of an increasingly powerful literary voice for [her] nation."

—Heather Hewett, The Washington Post Book World