Description
Lying bare the political and personal intricacies of community struggles, this extraordinary story portrays the historical roots of the service delivery revolts that have swept South Africa in recent years. This novel centers around an engaging and tragic couple: an unemployed ex-shop steward and revolutionary, Monwabisi Radebe, and his wife, Constantia, a former nursery school aide turned local councilor in the fictional Eastern Cape township of Sivuyile. As the council implements an American-financed project of prepaid meters, water cut-offs are visited upon dozens of households. Idealistic Monwabisi faces the most difficult of choices: to remain loyal to the loving wife and mother of his children, who now represents an increasingly discredited council, or take to the streets with disenchanted residents. As Monwabisi and a host of other compelling characters face moral and economic dilemmas of street level organization, this narrative exposes the complexities of post-1994 politics in South Africa.
About the Author
The author, James Kilgore, lived as a fugitive in South Africa from 1991 to 2002 under the name John Pape. He was an educator, researcher and activist. In 2002, authorities extradited him to the United States where he served six and a half years in prison for political offenses committed in the 1970s. The idea for this book emerged from his observation that as a prisoner in the U.S. he enjoyed unlimited access to free water, something which remained out of the reach for so many people in South Africa. Kilgore currently lives in the U.S. where he is a research scholar at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Illinois. He is the author of We Are All Zimbabweans Now, described by the Natal Witness as one of the "three best reads" of 2009 and Prudence Couldn't Swim.
Book Information
ISBN 9781431401192
Author James Kilgore
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Jacana Media
Publisher Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd
Weight(grams) 500g
Dimensions(mm) 212mm * 136mm * 15mm