171pp., paperback, Jacana Media, Johannesburg, 2025

ISBN: 9781431436385

A novel told in alternating voices that explores the fragile sisterhood that develops between two Black women struggling against impossible expectations.

Trapped in a childless marriage with an increasingly violent husband, Naledi fights to reclaim her dreams, her identity, her body and her sanity. Aunty, a Zimbabwean domestic worker with her own invisible wounds, bears witness to the disintegration.

" ...a novel that confronts the unseen and unspoken pain of being a woman in a world that often refuses to see it. Through the intertwined lives of two women, Matlwa once again proves her gift for illuminating the private battles fought in the name of survival and dignity ... Through Naledi’s inner turmoil and Aunty’s quiet endurance, Matlwa explores the emotional architecture of womanhood - how it is built on care, sacrifice, fear and resilience. The book questions what happens when love becomes captivity and when prayer turns into silence." Lutho Pasiya, IOL

Kopano Matlwa won the 2006/2007 European Union Award for her first novel, Coconut, and subsequently jointly won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2010. Her successive novels are Spilt Milk and Period Pain. Matlwa, who has a Master’s in Global Health Science and a doctorate in Population Health from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, works as a public health physician in Johannesburg.

BOSADI

: Matlwa (K.)

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