A Memoir

I began reading this book earlier this month as an audiobook. It was read by the author, Msimang herself. I have to admit that I don't think I could have found a better way to read this book. Msimang narrates with care, with love which only she could feel and communicate to her readers/listeners. This memoir will stay with me in the years to come as I try to figure out my place in this world, in the debilitating, hopeless world always out on crushing its people. Msimang, a women rights activist, a writer from South Africa gives the world a sketch of her life as an exile always in seek of home. Her story begins with jovial memories from childhood spent in Zambia, Kenya, Canada, US, until she finally comes home, her home in South Africa. Her father had left South Africa as a revolutionary to free and dream of South Africa where blacks wouldn't bleed while the whites luxuriated. Her father's decision as a young boy impacts the future he has set out for his three girls and their mother. While Msimang accepts the privilege in which she's grown despite being in exile, she equally mourns what the idea of being black, being woman does to her and her family in public spaces. In African countries, she leads the life of elite, and in Canada and US she is reminded of her blackness and otherness. I was moved to see the growth, the change in her as she saw herself through these ups and downs. Her acute sensitivity to little incidents where she was the victim and the other a villain was moving and at the same time extremely provocative. It lay out a perspective, a standpoint which feminist have fought for (albeit contestations) for years! Interestingly, she upturns the entire black/white division of how one see the world morally, in our ideas of who is wrong and who is right by travelling back to these childhood incidents as an adult woman. For me, the most moving parts of the book were her reflection on her relationships with lovers, parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, helps. It gave the memoir a home- a melange of sadness and triumph. As I heard her voice get heavy with pain, or rise with elation, my heart tore through. I felt her grief and let it wash over me. I felt her happiness and grinned with tears. I wanted to run toward the little girl growing up in late 20th century and hug her with warmth. She needed it. Msimang's story was a search for warmth, a reckoning with the many blips of her life and a work for a better world. As she says herself, she writes both for herself and for the many black girls and boys who die and never reconcile with themselves. That's exactly what her writing sounded like; like writing both to please herself and to change the world. I cannot thank Srila Roy enough for this gorgeous recommendation. And I wholeheartedly recommend this book to all!

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