To Every Birth Its Blood: A Novel

by Mongane Wally Serote

To every birth its blood, Serote's first novel, was originally published in 1981. It was written over a period of six years and combines the piercing subjectivity of Serote's earlier works with a broad canvas of characters and time sequences. Whether his characters are young or old, men or women, Serote's extraordinary empathy takes us into the interior of their lives.

Genres: Africa, South Africa, Fiction, Contemporary, Historical Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Puleng Hopper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr Serote, through journalist Tsietsi Molope, his family and friends, relates of a volatile era in black township reserves. The 1970s. A period of Black power, when the movement was at war with apartheid and its brutal arrogant perpetrators who had cater blanche on Black lives. A time when death , blood , was a given for their new borns .

A graphic narration of the unapologetic elimination of mpimpis, bombings, mass funerals, and the torture of purported "communists" and "terrorists". We get to take a trip to the infamous John Vorster Square where many a freedom fighter was thrown out of the 10th floor. The book was banned in South Africa in 1981.

Dr Serote gives an account against the back drop of melodies and tunes by Hugh Masekela, Dollar Brand, Merriam Makeba, Coltrane. Eric Dolphy, Kippie Moeketsi and Nina Simone.

Having attended school in Alexandra, having resided in Botswana, having been an ANC underground operative, detainee without trial, Dr Serote relates from the heart and draws from personal experience.

I was successfully transported to Alexandra township. The character Tsietsi, asks " but what is this shit, what is this thing called Alexandra. Seven streets. Twenty two avenues. Houses. Tin houses. Brick houses Torn streets. Smell. Dongas. Dirty water in the streets. Dark city. The devils kitchen... What is this mess. Our home. Our country. Our world".. Permits. Passes. Police.."
As the story unfolds the setting moves to Soweto, Leslie, Hammanskraal, Wolmanstadt and Botswana.

I liked the sober minded,tea sipping , book loving and book case owning freedom fighters. A few took alcohol as an escape, but what a brave, resilient , determined and intelligent bunch. They were steadfast that " Since the settlers first settled, all their laws and wars have succeeded in only postponing the real issue, that the people want and need their land"

A heartbreaking depiction of violence on Black bodies. At the same time a story of hope and resilience. A political lesson. Packed with the knowledge of our past, to better equip us in contextualising the present to enable us to succesfully map the future.

[Bongani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very special book for me, for my people of Leslie, now known as Leandra. It is the only book I know that gives tribute to the people of Leslie for their contribution in the struggle against apartheid.
As Bra Wally concludes in the last chapter he tells the story of the people of Leslie, now forgotten, how they influenced the schools boycotts in the 70’s across the country.

“The incident started at a small school in a small township near Springs, near Kinross in Leslie. The children at this school told the teacher, who came to teach Maths, that they could not learn if he had his holster on. They told him that they thought he should go to the operational area and teach the people there the Maths of life. That there were no longer any borders to protect... When he did not listen, they told him they were walking out of class. At this point, he threatened that anyone who left the class would be arrested. The government could not allow lawlessness and disorder to rule. Whose government, one pupil asked. The man said that this pupil was marked and would regret the question. The class stood up and was walking out, when, out of frustration, the teacher pounced on the boy who had asked, whose government? The whole school joined in the protest. The police came. They were stoned. They opened fire.
The other schools in Springs joined the protest. Benoni joined. Boksburg joined. Brakpan joined. Germiston. Johannesburg. Cape Town. Durban.
The system of discriminatory education must be scrapped, the students said.
The streets of South Africa’s cities were again filled with two types of uniforms, both feared: camouflage dress and school uniforms.
The parents and the children- domestic servants, street sweepers, bus drivers, gardeners, everyone - joined... In Leslie, the children disappeared. Trucks were coming for them. The trucks did not find the the children the next time they came. They took the mother’s and father’s instead.
From the main cities came demands that they be released. The mineworkers joined the strike. The trucks came for them too. The churches came out, saying they would disobey the government.”

A lot is known and documented about the schools boycott of the 70’s but almost none about Leslie. From this, Bra Wally paints the people of Leslie as brave fighters for what is just and good. I am proud to come from the loins of such courageous people who raised their voice against authority for what is right and just.
I am sad that there is not a lot that is documented about the true story and history of my people and of the place I call home, where my remains will be brought from any corner in the world to Leslie, to be buried when I reach my demise.
It is also painful that 30years after this story was published, a series of protests spread across most South African townships, Leslie amongst them, almost 20 years after the fall of the apartheid government and its brutal police force and a supposedly government of the people consisting of the former students who protested and ultimately overthrown the apartheid government were in charge. When the so called service delivery protests happened, across the country’s townships, the new police force which was supposed to have transformed from brutal to a caring force that protects its people responded in the same way as the apartheid police. The Hippos came, the police took many people and killed others. In Leslie, a former school mate, Nobie was shot dead by the police. The protests ended, Nobie was soon forgotten and the many others who lost their lives.
Leslie remains largely undeveloped with high rates of unemployment and poverty in the area.
As the saying goes, there more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Nicholas Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly powerful and visceral in it's impact especially the first half which deserves 5 stars. Starts off slowly so stick with it, once it picks up pace and the characterisation solidifies, you're up and running in the streets of Alexandra. Should be read in conjunction with Trevor Noah's book Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood. Second half changes tack and presents us with a new set of characters which took a little getting used to. However it's the second wave (or should I say 1000th wave) of the struggle against oppression in South Africa. It's now a no holds-barred fight on both sides. Serote jumps around a lot in the second half and I had a little trouble locating the character relationships and timeframes but he managed to hold my attention even given this drawback. The disjointedness may reflect the 6 years spent writing the novel, the narrative structure meanders at the end. Still a superb evocation of life lived under brutal oppression.

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Color and word juxtaposition like none other.

That moment, as she went about the house opening the windows, taking off her shoes, unbuttoning her blouse, looking calm and more friendly, I wanted to weep. I did not know how I was going to tell her, 'Baby, most things about this earth want you to run, want to make you weary, want you to faint.'

So I sat back on the chair. I said, 'Honey, why don't you play Nina Simone?'

'Streets full of people all alone,' Nina was saying. [from,/i>Everyone's Gone To The Moon]

I have always tried to talk to my Baby with music. So, I thought, Ausi Miriam has her way about this. I pushed the button to reject. Flipped the record and put on 'Woza.'

========
Alexandra is one of the oldest townships in South Africa. It is closely related to Johannesburg. From the centre of the Golden City to the centre of the Dark City is a mere nine miles. Where one starts the other ends, and where one ends, the other begins.

Alexandra is a creation of schizophrenics like Jan Smuts [Jan Christiaan Smuts was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher]; it is a makeshift place of abode, a township - that is, black people live here. Live here only if the whims of the Verwoerds are still stable to that end.

Memory can be an unreliable mirror. It shirts and shifts, now and then emphasizing the dramatic, now and then leaving out detail, now and then flushing out detail at surprising moments.

It was a winter night, chasing everyone home, with its cold whistle.

I felt as if I was going to choke, any minute.

Everything became so heavy. Silence. Talk.

Coming back from Lesotho, I felt grateful for what Alexandra's streets had taught me. Having had a chance to look at them from a distance, I had discovered that they had taught me a kind of animal agility, a kind of tiger alertness, cynicism, distrust, and a readiness to defend my life at all costs. Yet my awareness of the rules of the streets made me, to my surprise, an observer rather than a participant. In Lesotho, with its emphasis on communities, gentleness, there was a circular movement: where the beginning is humility and the search is a desire to be humble, in the process of making a life. It taught me the value of human life. Perhaps it was that realisation that showed me something else: that when man allows his heart to rot, we are capable of beginning to feed on the worms that rise, weave, create all sorts of patterns as they emerge from the rot. We can lick, and begin to enjoy their taste. I did - as a reporter.

My grandmother would say, "You choose how you do it, we are going, we are on our way. We tried to show you everything, we loved you, took your hand and walked with you. One day you will have to remember that you are alone, among other people, and that you have a journey to make."

We moved, and we were back in the streets, Alexandra, fucked up, filled with its Sunday afternoon people, who seemed to be walking aimlessly, looking at the passing cars as if we were caged monkeys.

Now I could not bear to relate what had happened to anyone. It was my secret. Suddenly a strange, heavy sadness set into my heart, or wherever it is that these things happen. It was as if the car would go out of control.

I feared for Mary, the day she found what the street had for her. The streets in which her mother would not be, with her biting tongue, to tell her that she would be climbed, make to take journeys into the centre of the sea, and be left there, to be mocked while she was fighting the current.

I began to understand why my father never wanted me to talk to him about the streets, or the city, or the police stations. I began to understand why he had forbidden that in his house. I wished he could die, and rest.

The streets, perhaps because the scars were so visible, still demanded a photo from me, or cued me for my part after someone had been murdered. I responded, but this time without a pen and note book, and without the camera. I witnessed. I left the white paper blank. I refused to return the stare of the typewriter keyboard. The terrible township images, which forever kept staring at me in the dark of the darkroom, because just that, a dark room, blank.

I had been naked. In the brightest of days, in the most open space, I had - first, unwilling, then willing because of what was pushing me - dared to be naked. I flushed it out, raw nakedness, as clean and bright as the sun and as pure as filth. It seems there is always something terrible which happens when suddenly people discover the value of something they had, because they had taken it for granted.

Wherever I had been, before, I had seen something similar to what I was becoming. I did not believe it, there was no way that I could, until one day I saw it in my father's face. He became silent. I heard the silence in me. When sat in a shebeen, or kept talking to Lily, I heard the silence. It was tangible, it had colour, it had smell, it was familiar; there was no way I could not recognise it, it had been with me while I was still learning how to hold my cock and pee. It was here now with me. I took it with me, home, and it kept us company with a bottle of whiskey which Lily brought for us. And then I began to become aware that between the melody, harmony and rhythm of the music that now and then filled my house, from Hugh, Dollar, Nina, Letta, Miriam, Kippie, Cyril Magubane, Coltrane, Miles... between their melody, harmony ad rhythm, when the pants are down, the silence is there. This is not an easy find. It is heavy. I could no longer listen to the music that had taught me so much!

Education is a socialising agency; in South Africa, black children are subjected to an education which is instrumental in imparting the dominant ideology of apartheid or separate development, a system which the black peole in general abhor.

There is abundant evidence that no black child is encouraged, in any way, to attend school. In face, the contrary is true.

There is an alternative to present educational system for blacks. The alternative system would be based on the dynamic relation between consciousness and reality, and would respect the principle that knowledge must be supplemented by action. I do not underestimate the work that has to be done to re-establish an educational system which will teach the black child that he is a citizen of South Africa, and that he bears responsibility for this country.

So now and then one slept with a sore heart; one feeling ignored, another feeling invaded.

DARING TERROR ATTACK ON DURBAN OIL PLANT.

The planes arrived in Mozambique. Thunder. Fire. Smoke. Silence.

The Prime Minister declared a news blackout.

All I know is that besides being a loss of safety, change is also a promise. These planes cannot bomb us forever. Nor are we going to queue for bread for the rest of our lives. I am sure about that. I saw the women and the children come with their bundles. I saw their eyes. I saw their faces. I know that this cannot go on forever. The first leg of the journey is now well and truly in progress. There is no safety anywhere - not for anyone. The pilots who fly the planes - like these mothers and their children and their bundles - stare and stare and stare, in the way that only a human can, in the only way that a human fears. At a certain point, the stares of fear and of hunger look alike. It does not matter whether one flies a plane or stands in a queue. Now and then we look at the mighty planes with their mad speed, hovering and swooping above us. But we also know that, while we fear them, they also are in great fear to fall. We know - as they roar above our heads - that since we are human and they are not, we can wait and they cannot. They cannot fly and wait. In the same way that we cannot wait and starve for a long time. We can fall, and they will fall. We see their huge shining bodies whizz past and roar afterwards, and before we know where they are they come back. But that is because they do not see us, or know us, or want to know us. The strongest will win this game. It is costly. But the strongest will win it.

Who is the strongest?

'Push, push, push.'

New York - Gaborone - Kanye 1975-1980
[Gaborone is located in Botswana]

[Henrik Keeler · Rating 4 out of 5]

“To Every Birth its Blood” is a poetic and intense novel about life in the township Alexandra in Johannesburg during apartheid. It demonstrates how fear pervades every aspect of life in such an oppressive political situation, but it also shows us the significance of culture in order to survive and fight. Poetry is the genre that is most closely connected to music, and jazz is the musical genre most closely connected to poetry. In this novel there are constant references to jazz legends like John Coltrane and Miles Davis, and to protest singers like Nina Simone and Miriam Makeba. The novel is quite modernist in its form, and changes perspectives and time sequences often, especially in the second half. This makes the novel a little confusing, but it also gives the text a wide scope, enabling it to explore many facets of this society. There are scenes of torture and violence here, which serve an important function. No matter how poetical and beautiful a literary text is, it is important to keep in mind the very physical experience of pain in a torture chamber. This is something literary abstraction never should lose sight of.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book twice. It is well-written and vivid and very disturbing. It takes place during apartheid in a township in South Africa and as a reader you feel the constant fear of the main character - and his stress and the overall (lack of) quality of life. His writing is such that you feel like you are actually there - and it isn't a pleasant experience.
Not a light read by any means.

[Marya]

Extremely good book ---- it was hard to put down. For me it really painted a picture of everyday life for black people living in Apartheid-era South Africa. Much better than Cry, the Beloved Country.

[Barry Gilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Long Jazz Riff

To Every Birth It’s Blood is, stylistically, a long, singing, constantly surprising jazz improvisation. Now lyrical, now rhythmical, now piercing, now chaotic; always returning, just when most needed, to heart-stomping drumbeat and wailing melody.

[Sipho Lukhele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book and it lived to the expectation of "exploring the subjective experiences of a rage of voices and characters who live, love and struggle in the 1970s apartheid South Africa." What I did not like about the book is the plethora of characters, that often left me confused. What I love is the command of the English language that Mr. Serote delivers. I think the book is necessary and I recommend it for those who really love South African history.

[Danely Shiba · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is brutal. Dr Serote wrote it, and after being affected by the 1976 Soweto Uprisings, he pressed on in a different direction than he had initially intended, it is said.

[Tricia]

that the effects of imperialism are lasting