The Cry of Winnie Mandela

by Njabulo S. Ndebele

The author portrays four women whose lives have been spent waiting for their men to return, like Odysseus’ Penelope. They question themselves and each other about why they waited and what this waiting did to them. This leads them to imaginary conversations with Winnie Mandela, the most famous of the South African women who waited.

Genres: South Africa, Fiction, Africa, Southern Africa, Read For School, Contemporary, Historical Fiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Professor Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele an academic, a literary and a writer of fiction, is the former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Cape Town.

Ndebele's father was Nimrod Njabulo Ndebele and his mother was Makhosazana Regina Tshabangu. He married Mpho Kathleen Malebo on 30 July 1971. They have one son and two daughters. Ndebele was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy by the University of Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland in 1973; a Master of Arts in English Literature by the University of Cambridge in 1975; and a Doctor of Philosophy in Creative Writing by the University of Denver in 1983. He also studied at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, where he was the first recipient of the South African Bursary.

Njabulo Ndebele was Vice-Chancellor and Principal at the University of Cape Town from July 2000 to June 2008, following tenure as a scholar in residence at the Ford Foundation’s headquarters in New York. He joined the Foundation in September 1998, immediately after a five-year term of office as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Limpopo in Sovenga, in the then Northern Province. Previously he served as Vice-Rector of the University of the Western Cape. Earlier positions include Chair of the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand; and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Dean, and Head of the English Department at the National University of Lesotho.

An established author, Njabulo Ndebele recently published a novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela to critical acclaim. An earlier publication Fools and Other Stories won the Noma Award, Africa’s highest literary award for the best book published in Africa in 1984. His highly influential essays on South African literature and culture were published in a collection Rediscovery of the Ordinary.

Njabulo Ndebele served as President of the Congress of South African Writers for many years. As a public figure he is known for his incisive insights in commentaries on a range of public issues in South Africa. He holds honorary doctorates from universities in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Japan, South Africa and the United States of America. He is also a Fellow of UCT.

Njabulo Ndebele is also a key figure in South African higher education. He has served as Chair of the South African Universities Vice-Chancellor’s Association from 2002-2005, and served on the Executive Board of the Association of African Universities since 2001. He has done public service in South Africa in the areas of broadcasting policy, school curriculum in history, and more recently as chair of a government commission on the development and use of African languages as media of instruction in South African higher education. He recently became President of the AAU and Chair of the Southern African Regional Universities Association.

The University of Cambridge awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in Law in 2006, and he was made an honorary fellow of Churchill College in 2007.

Reviews

[Sophia · Rating 2 out of 5]

maaaan, I’m so disappointed in this one ://

I really tried to like it, I did! But it’s just so contradictory. I mean we’re talking all about these women who have been left by their husband for some reason or another, they’re waiting women, they’re constantly defined by their husbands and the men in their lives… BUT IT WAS WRITTEN BY A MAN?!?! make it make sense.

and I tried to overlook it. I was hoping that my initial doubts would be proven wrong, and I wouldn’t even remember while reading that it was a man writing it. Nah. I knew that whole damn time.

Ugh.

I’m not giving it one star, because there were some interesting points and the theme of time intrigued me a lot. But. Ugh.

[rowan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm this had really interesting themes but apart from that there wasn’t much I enjoyed. I think I didn’t really like the narrative voice and I didn’t feel that attached to the characters. also idk how i feel about the presentation of winnie cos she was kinda problematic?? idk i need to do some more research on it tho as i don’t know much about apartheid south africa n stuff

- oh yeah and one of the reviews pointed out it was written by a man which is interesting lol given how central women are to it

[Izzy Beer · Rating 3 out of 5]

i liked the themes of the book and the general message but didn’t find it very enjoyable to read

[Gabrielle Mellor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm I really wish I would’ve liked this book more but something about the writing style was just very hard to follow for me

[José Toledo · Rating 2 out of 5]

The mere two-star rating requires a bit of an explanation. The Cry of Winnie Mandela is a great tale, with lofty subject matter and excellent writing, but presented as a novel it falls far short of stylistic and narrative expectations for the genre. I cannot comment on the revised version published last autumn because I have not seen it, but in this original one it is really quite a pity that five potentially immensely fascinating and powerful characters are obliterated by the collegiate voice of the author, who is a professor and vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town. Several great writers, mostly in the European tradition, have mastered the novel-essay form. I am thinking specifically of Christa Wolf and Milan Kundera. Ndebele's book could have been paired with these great ones if only he had put more effort into creating distinct voices for each character. Instead, their search for a language of their own is crushed by the author's commanding, highly insightful voice. He writes about women, about their specific plight in times of struggle, in a most elucidating way; too bad that he does not allow them to speak and act for themselves. A finely wrought narrative technique would have matched the audacity and originality of the attempted form. Nonetheless, I was very taken by the profound meditations, in essay form, which range from social and philosophical problems to sexual violence and nostalgia for the land. If only I could have overcome my search for the promised novel, never delivered.

[Dolly Madibane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, because of the subject matter mainly, but I found that the author is too intrusive and the language is dry and academic whereas I was expecting a much more emotion-based tale. Anyway, it is still well worth reading.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for Uni, just not my thing

[Sabine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a teenager when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and, like many others of my generation, I read the books that were popular in that era - I read Donald Woods' "Biko" and John Briley's "Cry Freedom" (though I never watched the film), and Winnie Mandela's "Part of my Soul". Around the same time, I also read another book, Doris Lessing's "Desdemona, if only you had spoken". Out of all books, this one stayed with me the most, even though it isn't (at first glance) related to the topic here. Doris Lessing gave voice to female characters - both in history and in literature - allowing them long monologues where they had a chance to explain themselves, to flesh out their characters, to be "more". I always thought they were the perfect monologues - innovative, fairly unknown, and interesting. Ndebele's book reminds me of this. Four women, at first disconnected from each other, are waiting. For various reasons, they are finding themselves without a husband - one went away to study, one went away to work, one died, one went into exile - all legitimate reasons, but as months drag into years, the women experience a kind of limbo. Society has certain expectations, and they are trapped in their existence, no matter what they do. When they meet (it is not described how, nor does it matter, there is a "meta" quality to this book, where the characters themselves seem aware of their imaginary existence), they decide to play a game, each looking to address Winnie Mandela, a waiting woman like they are, but waiting much more publicly. They ask questions, they draw out things they have heard, seen and read, and they engage with their own experiences in relation to Winnie's, inviting her to join their circle. When she does, she becomes one of them - questioning, searching, reflecting, acknowledging.

I found this book utterly fascinating - like the monologues composed by Doris Lessing, here are women who are given a voice to express themselves. But of course, it is their imagined voices, imagined by authors who have a way with words (at the time of the publication of the book, Ndebele was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town), and who can make us listen. This book reminds me of people whose stories need to be told, and consider the complexities of who might have the right, the ability, and the connections to tell those stories.

Originally reviewed on www.fantasticbooksandwheretofindthem.fun

[Brooks Goddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

While South Africa was on our many minds for so long as a political anachronism and relieved by Mandela’s release and presidency, I find it somewhat of a shock to remember now that Nelson died in 2013 and Winnie in 2018. But time or the times are not central to this inventive novel that I hope you’ll read. The novel is an attempt to “explain” the Winnie Mandela that abandoned her husband and the ideals that her husband became known for. Ndebele takes the image of the twenty-year waiting Penelope from The Odyssey and creates a intimate group of 4 South African women who have faced extended periods of waiting for their husbands to return from the mines, the ports, overseas study, or their wayward behaviors. He develops the circumstances of these 4 woman and sets them a task: each one of them imagines a conversation with Winnie Mandela [she still had 15 years to live] and can frame it any way they wish. Then Winnie answers. As totally fictional as the 4 are, Winnie is real but alive only in the context of conversations about her (go to google at this point). The implication is that while the people talked about Winnie, they really didn’t understand her. Winnie’s reply is fictitious. Then the 5 of them go to an Indian Ocean camp ground for more talk. On the way they see a hitchhiker who when at a rolled down window tells them that she is Penelope. Not just for Africanists.

[Dee Mafora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Njabulo Ndebele captures so poetically what is means to be a woman in waiting in post apartheid South Africa. Such beautiful prose. I don’t know these women but they feel so familiar to me. They are my aunts and grandmothers and cousins and friends. To be a women is to be in a constant state of waiting. I loved this so much. I am critically of men writing (and therefore speaking for)women. This is no exception.

Still worth the read, it makes me think in my stomach, it leaves me wanting more.

[Mapeu Mogoera · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book after watching the stage adaptation hoping to experience the same emotional impact in the book. Unfortunately, the writing style didn’t work for me. I felt it was too academic and at time I was not sure if I was reading a novel or an essay. Given the weight of the subject matter and the themes explored, I felt the book needed a stronger emotional pull. While the concept is powerful and I get what the author was aiming to do, the execution just didn’t resonate with me.

[Thomas Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting take on waiting. the way ndebele uses winnie as a device for the other four women to bounce off of is really clever. aspects of community storytelling as reconciliation are well thought out and represented here. just some moments very clearly felt like a man writing from a woman’s perspective. the ending road-trip felt clunky compared to the rest of the narratives.

[Yoi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Très bien écrit sous une forme originale (des témoignages de femmes qui s'adressent les unes aux autres)mais j'ai eu beaucoup de mal à en venir à bout, peut être par manque de références culturelles, malgré l'identification aisée à certains personnages.

[Lizole Jalajala · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I expected (don't know what I was expecting). It could've been an essay and all would've been well. I'm simply disappointed.
Good writing tho, loved the themes explored but experimental work is either a hit or miss and it was a miss for me.

[Millie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a nice story on women.

Why do we wait for the men when they are allowed to go and pursue their passions.

The society is harsh on the choices of the women in this regard(after the men left)…

Winnie Mandela and all she did for the people of South Africa. What happened when Mandela came back?

[Zee · Rating 3 out of 5]

what the hell, sure 😭

it wasn't bad but my brain grappled with the almost academic style of writing in a (semi?)fictional piece

though the concept of time & travel was quite intriguing, this was a bit of a battle to get through

[Natasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fictional conversation between four unknown south African women and Winnie. Ndebele is a talented writer and observer of women but too mythical for me

[Carine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interresting read, although I found the style sometimes quite academic.

[Lerato Mogoatlhe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. One of the most influential books I have ever read.

[Kat Rina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything.

[frankie lochhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

women are so cool

[Anya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. Nothing to write home about, really.

Read for ENGL186 Post-Apartheid Novels.

[Sanelisiwe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely worth reading, quite educational on rooted misogyny and patriarchy.

[Lebogang Mashiloane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story felt one sided to me. I didn’t enjoy that.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everybody knows the story of Winnie Mandela, venerated as the stoic wife of the world’s secular saint Nelson Mandela while he languished in prison on Robben Island under the South African apartheid regime, only to be vilified as a wicked woman in the last few years before his release.

This remarkable book, The Cry of Winnie Mandela, A Novel uses the story of Penelope from Greek myth, to analyse the untenable position of women whose husbands are absent for long periods of time. It’s written from a post-colonial and feminist view of the world, and it draws on all kinds of postmodern flourishes:
•It’s faction, blending fact and fiction and using real living people;
•It plays with intertextuality because while the references to Homer absorb the myth, it also will change the way you read the Penelope story (unless you’ve already read Margaret Atwood’s playful feminist reworking of it in The Penelopiad). It also alludes to a famous story called The Suit by Can Themba (1924–1968), a banned South African short story writer who fled to Swaziland and wrote about the frustrations of tertiary-educated urban black people. That story focuses on the extreme punishment meted out to an unfaithful wife.
•It’s a pastiche, beginning on the very first page with ‘a blurb from an imaginary book about a South African woman during the long years of struggle against apartheid’. A blurb within the pages of a book: I haven’t seen this before. Here it is:


So what does a woman do in the absence of her husband, who is in jail, in the mines, in exile, or is dead, or away studying, or spends most on the road as a salesman, or who, while not having gone awywhere in particular, is never at home because he just busy fooling around? This woman has seen all kinds of departures, has endured the uncertainties of waiting, and has hoped for the return of her man. Departure, waiting and return; they define her experience of the past, present and future. They frame her life at the centre of a great South African story not yet told.
This book tells the stories of four unknown women, and that of South Africa’s most famous woman, who waited. (p1)

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/11/20/th...

[Lillian (Ink and Pages) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was assigned reading for my Odysseus module, as it's a reimagining of the Penelope character in the original, and her themes of fidelity, waiting, and marriage. It takes place in South Africa and Lesotho, and tells the stories of four different women who, for one reason or another, had to wait for their husbands to come home to them.

It’s quite a short but intense book, that manages to pack a huge number of themes into only 150 pages. The author explores extremely complex topics in quite a lot of detail, and the writing was quite confusing at times, but I went in with an already made crib sheet with the women's names and stories so I'd know what was going on. As well as the four main characters, the real life figure of Winnie Mandela is also included as a kind of fifth protagonist, who answers questions from the others, and speaks about her own waiting for her husband to be released from prison.

The characters are used to explore the various aspects of marriage, fidelity, patience, and betrayal, as well as examining the traditional role of women as wives within South African history, and all the time there’s an underlying connection between these women who waited and the figure of Penelope. The book is quite meta, and at times very aware of its own existence as a book, and instead of there being any kind of obvious plot, it’s more like a series of characters who are frozen in time – after waiting for their husbands – having a conversation amongst themselves, and then turning to address Winnie Mandela herself.

Overall, it was an interesting book, and I'm glad I read it, but I can't honestly say I enjoyed it, though I would recommend it to anyone interested in reimaginings of the Odyssey, or the character of Penelope.

My rating: ★★

Find more content like this on my blog: https://inkandpagesblog.blogspot.co.uk/

[Mariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This amazing book talks about women in South Africa whose husbands are absent. There are millions of women whose husbands have left to work in the mines, factories, exile, education, disappearances and arrest-and-torture, also death. Many women whose husbands came back, found they came back as strangers. This book is a novel that tells the story of four women and Winnie Mandela. It gets it right!

[Nina Chachu · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the books I chose for my Africa Reading Challenge http://kinnareads.wordpress.com/2012/... . I am not exactly over-enthused, I have to admit. I guess because the story was essentially a political commentary, not really a novel in my view. For what it said, fine; for characters not really.

[elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never read anything quite like this. As a meditation on waiting and gender, it beats the pants off Godot. I think there is something important, if imperfect, in his mix of mythologies. And (I realize this reveals my own limitations) I'm still startled that this book was written by a man...

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my opinion, an excellent book (though it's taken a lot of literary-criticism flak). It answers the call among many South African writers and critics for literature about women, family, and rural life. Moving, smart, provocative.