OF MOTHERHOOD AND MELANCHOLIA, notebook of a psycho-ethnographer

382pp., paperback, Pietermaritzburg, 2020

Clinical psychologist Lou-Marié Kruger's account of the lived experiences of low income mothers in post-apartheid South Africa. She focuses specifically on life in a semi-rural community in the Dwarsrivier Valley.

"This is a strong, coherent and incisive work of literary art-cum-analytical insight into the lifeworld of those most vulnerable in our society: women and young people in a situation of economic and social marginality. It is also a necessary shocking experience to read the traumatic psycho-ethnographic case material and analysis, which succeeds in humanising those who are often biomedically objectified. While it must have been a difficult book to write, it is also difficult not to be gripped by the book on a personal and social level and not to experience the catharsis that the material provides: from dread to hope for individuals, social relationships and the broader South African society." Kees van der Waal, editor of Winelands, Wealth and Work: transformations in the Dwars River Valley, Stellenbosch

Lou-Marié Kruger is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Stellenbosch University.