Prodigal Daughters: Stories of South African Women in Exile

by Lauretta Ngcobo (Editor)

During the years of apartheid rule in South Africa, many women 'skipped' the country and fled into exile to evade harassment, detention, imprisonment, and torture by state security forces. Leaving the country of their birth, many took calculated though dangerous risks to cross borders. Once in exile, sometimes for several decades, many women experienced discrimination, danger, deprivations, and the stress associated with being a foreigner in a strange land. All lived with the distant yet distinct hope that they would one day be able to return to a liberated homeland.

In Prodigal Daughters, edited by Lauretta Ngcobo, 18 women tell their intensely personal stories of exile. They relive a past for the sake of fixing into memory narratives that would surely disappear in a country still struggling to shake off the shackles of racial inequality and oppression. Stories of being accepted or rejected in host countries and stories of homecoming, read like bittersweet memories of survival, longing, and intrigue. For many of these women, a life in exile enabled their growing realization that apartheid was just one facet of oppression in the world. It connected with much broader struggles for justice and human rights. South Africa has yet to fully appreciate the memories and records of life experienced in that 'desert of exile, ' experiences that have helped society become what it is today.

Prodigal Daughters includes a full color illustrated section with photographs of the book's contributors during their life in exile, as well as more recent photographs.

Editor Lauretta Ngcobo returned to South Africa in 1994 after 31 years in exile. She was the winner of the literary lifetime achievement award from the South African Department of Arts and Culture in 2006 and the winner of the Order of Ikhamanga from The Presidency of South Africa for excellent achievement in the field of literature in 2008.

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Lauretta Ngcobo (born 1931) was a South African novelist and essayist. After being in exile between 1963 and 1994, she lived in Durban until her death in November 2015.

The daughter of Simon Gwina, she was born in Ixopo, KwaZulu-Natal, grew up there, and was educated at the University of Fort Hare. She married Abednego Bhekabantu Ngcobo, a founder and member of the executive of the Pan Africanist Congress. In 1963, facing imminent arrest, the family fled the country, moving to Swaziland, then Zambia and finally England, where she taught school for 25 years. Ngcobo returned to South Africa in 1994. Her husband died in 1997.

In South African she taught for a while before becoming a Member of the KwaZulu Natal Legislature, where she spent eleven years before retiring in 2008.

In 2006, she received the Lifetime Achievement Literary Award of the South African Literary Awards. In 2008, she was awarded the Order of Ikhamanga for her work in literature and in promoting gender equality.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[thelastword · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book delivers what the title promises, except instead of 'stories of South African women in exile' it should read 'accounts of South African women in exile'. Stories suggest feeling, but we are given a sort of wikipedia article in the first person narrative here. The accounts are given by the women themselves, but in such a cut-and-dried, matter-of-fact tone, that all details that should be shocking, impressive, awe-inspiring, humbling, etc., are slimmed down to brief facts told in deadpan.

I'm sure these important women had no time for theatrics, but someone in the editorial/interviewing process could have drawn out more of the emotional impact these events had on these women, and made this narrative a little bit more than a basic collection of history.

All the same, I'm glad the effort was made to find out their stories and to compile it, even if it is in the most simplistic way possible. It is an important book, and has great potential to be an amazing book, but unless you need it for research or to add to your already brimming knowledge of the struggles during apartheid, it's not going to be a gripping read.

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my 2nd year English Literature course, i was required to read the short stories within Ngcobo's book: Prodigal Daughters.
For my essay, I read Lauretta's short story, The Prodigal Daughter and Liepollo Pheko's short story, Destination Azania.
Both women experienced exile from South Africa during the 1900's, with Ngcobo as first-generation exile and Pheko as second-generation exile.
I analysed the difference as well as the similarities between their experiences of exile, which they explained through the use of many literary devices, allowing the reader the opportunity to understand how the women felt.
I enjoyed both short stories as they were in 1st person, descriptive and had a happy conclusion.

4/5 stars

[kripsoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories told by the seventeen women who contribute to this compelling volume have two things in common First is the fact that they have all returned to South Africa the country they regard as home after as many as thirty years of being forced to live in another country. Secondly they had to find within themselves the strength to survive Exile is a vast desert says Baleka Mbete and Exile is about finding the resilience to survive anything says Ellen Pheko Otherwise their stories vary greatly starting with the reasons that they first left South Africa There are those who chose to leave but suddenly found themselves stateless when their passports were withdrawn those who fled for their own safety often having to leave young children behind those who dutifully followed their husbands into exile those who had no choice as they were young children when their parents left those who were born elsewhere but grew up believing they belonged in South Africa. And while the dominant note in the stories of return is that the women felt “overjoyed to be home again” (195) there is a great variety within this sentiment Some had spent their years away longing to return some had made a rewarding life in a new country and were reluctant to uproot again some especially those born abroad feel that they will never know the unquestioning sense of belonging that home can give Many profess a deep over-riding bond with the country Your first and undying love is for your country says Baleka Mbete while others emphasise that their time away provided an unchosen but valuable lesson in individual resourcefulness Many of the women who left in the late 1950s or early 1960s will have been near the end of their lives when they recorded their stories like Thokozile maZulu Chaane whose death inspired the making of this book We are the fortunate one and should treasure what has now been preserved distressing though its details often are Many women reveal a side of struggle-history that is usually ignored in favour of triumphalism and many of their details of long separations, loneliness and poverty as well as danger are probably unknown to most readers today For example while it is often acknowledged that those who settled or hovered in neighbouring countries including Tanzania were always in danger from agents of the apartheid regime assassinations bombings and kidnappings happened in Botswana, Swaziland and Mozambique it is not often admitted that exiles could equally find their lives threatened by their own kind as in-fighting between and within political groupings went unchecked. What Lauretta Ngcobo calls the ever-changing African alliances meant that she and the wives of TT Letlaka and J D Nyaose heard with alarm that there was a conspiracy to kill their husbands once they arrived at a divided camp in Zambia on their return from a PAC leaders meeting in Tanzania Fortunately the Zambian police were persuaded to intervene Rivalries were not always as dramatic but Gonda Perez records that “tensions among the various BCM (Black Consciousness Movement) groups in Botswana were serious enough to decide her, her husband Jaya Josie and two friends who had escaped with them to steer clear of all of the groups As a result they found themselves without accommodation or friends Barbara Bell tells a sad story of disillusionment as promise after promise was not kept by the ANC The details of the collection also make up its delights and there are some that will particularly intrigue readers in KZN For example the relations between the many exiles who fled to in Swaziland and the beleaguered government of that country were often strained because it was financially dependent on apartheid South Africa and under pressure not to accommodate political refugees Rajes Pillay recounts without comment Jacob Zuma was sent to Swaziland to try to improve Swazi-ANC relations He was scorned with the Swazis categorically stating that they did not know Zuma but knew Moses Mabhida They would not talk to anyone else but Mabhida Zuma left On a different note Mohau and Liepollo Pheko, both daughters of exile write with great perception of what it has meant to grow up with a belief that South Africa (or an idealized Azania as their PAC parents called it) is their home but without an experience of belonging in that home Liepollo concludes that although she has now made a fulfilling life for herself in Gauteng I am uneasy with the idea of South Africa as my final destination but remain in transit here on my way to Azania If belonging and identity are based on culture, language, heritage and statehood exile has given me multiple cultures to which I had to adapt in order to belong I am fluent in a suitcase-full of languages that I had to integrate into my life to fit in Being othered has added layers of a rich social diversity and cultural multiplicity which has allowed me to enjoy the making of me in many nations, nationhoods and nationalisms exile has defined and secured my own positive identity that transcends race geography,ethnicity,economics and ideology A many-layered sense of self cannot be comfortable or easy, but perhaps these words have a lot to say to South Africans about the exclusive brand of nationalism they need to relinquish in order successfully to create citizenship for all in the modern world