153 pages

English

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Beauty's Gift , livre ebook

Pan Macmillan South Africa - Sindiwe Magona

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153 pages

English

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The Five Firm Friends – Edith, Cordelia, Amanda, Doris and Beauty – are five sassy career women who confront life headon. But when Beauty suddenly becomes ill and, after six short
weeks, passes away, their world is thrown into confusion. On her deathbed Beauty begs Amanda to promise her one thing – that she and the rest of the FFF will not waste their lives as
she has done. All because of an unfaithful husband ... ‘Ukhule,’ she begs of Amanda. May you live a long life, and may you become old. Beauty’s Gift is a moving tale of how four women
decide to change their own fate as well as the lives of those closest to them. This is Sindiwe Magona at her very best – writing about social issues, and not keeping quiet. Speak up,
she says to women in Africa. Stand up, and take control of your own lives

Sujets

Vie de famille

Relations familiales

Republic of South Africa

21st century

South Africa

General officer

General

Afrique du Sud

Informations

Publié par	Pan Macmillan South Africa
Date de parution	01 août 2018
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781770106246
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0391€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

‘Beauty’s Giftoffers a space for identification and understanding for women which is an enormous gift in itself. It is a difficult book to read, because it reveals truths about our society and the people closest to us which are hard to accept. But exposing and confronting them is the first step to a better future for all.’ – Karina Magdalena Szczurek,Itch, The Creative Journal

‘Beauty’s Giftis a gift to all women, for it shows how a woman’s strength and gentleness can be combined to effect changes in a world that is often violent, and even more often lonely.’ – Judy Croome,Library Thing

In memory of my loving son, Sandile Soyiso Sayedwa. In my heart, you will always live, Rwaadibles!

Beauty’s Gift

Selected titles by Sindiwe Magona

Novels and Short Stories

Chasing the Tails of My Father’s Cattle (2015)

Mother to Mother (1998)

Push-Push and Other Stories (1996)

Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night (1991)

Memoir

Forced to Grow (1992)

To My Children’s Children (1990)

Beauty’s Gift

Inclubing tHe essay ‘WHy I WroteBeauty’s Gift’

Sinbiwe Magona

PICADOR AfRICA

First published in 2008 by Kwela Books an imprint of NB Publishers

This edition published in 2018 by Picador Africa an imprint of Pan Macmillan South Africa Private Bag X19, Northlands Johannesburg 2116

www.panmacmillan.co.za

ISBN 9781770106239 e-ISBN 9781770106246

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Editing by Duncan Brown Proofreading by Katlego Tapala Design and typesetting byFire and Lion Cover design by publicide Author photo by Victor Dlamini

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Why I WroteBeauty’s Gift

IN2003 IRETIREDfrom the United Nations Organization. A few years before that the AIDS pandemic broke out with catastrophic effects world-wide. Today, looking back, although I did not specifically acknowledge the fact, didn’t recognise it, the pandemic featured among the reasons I chose repat‐ riation when that retirement finally came. Friends, colleagues, family – everybody and his wife – questioned that choice of repatriation versus applying for the green card. Did I not like living in the United States of America then? My usual response to such questions was, ‘Of course, I do! When I joined the UN, first came here, it would take just two weeks of being in South Africa on holiday and I’d begin missing New York.’ My apartment; the readily available hot water; the unthinking ease with which I took a shower; a public transportation system that works, that is dependable, clean and safe; shops open late at night; Sunday shopping; newspapers delivered to my door; ditto with restaurant food – Chinese, Indian, Korean, Italian, Thai, or American; going to the cinema; theatre; a sense of security – that going on the subway at night didn’t mean taking my life in my hands; etc. etc. etc. Yes, I did enjoy the relative freedom of living in the Big Apple, the relative safety or sense thereof. However, as retirement drew nearer and nearer, I found that each time I was on Home Leave, when I had to pack my bags and return to New York, I’d find myself thinking: Oh, God, where am I going; and why am I going there? It seems that without my knowing, without making a conscious decision, I had already made a transition, psychologically. That doesn’t mean I was not torn. After all, I’d lived in the US for more than two decades –most of not only my working life, but my adult life as well. Consciously, several considerations went into the decision to return to my home country, South Africa. Chief among them was the fact that I missed home and my family. Also, by the time I retired, two of my three children were back in South Africa; and another not inconsiderable reason was that I recognised that my writing was rooted in South Africa and things South African. I felt I needed to reconnect, be ‘on the spot’ as it were, so as to be more in tune with what was happening in the country day-to-day and

not always get it via reportage. Also, one can’t write only and always from memory. However, another especially compelling reason for returning to South Africa was the hell I had seen – the raging fire in the country of my birth – a veritable catastrophe that was laying waste to all life – especially young life. Absolute devastation. But this was a reason I acknowledged mostly unconsciously. I didn’t say to myself, I’m going home to join the fight against HIV/AIDS; but the pandemic troubled me to the core of my being. ‘The other reason I’m going home is a little sad,’ I would sometimes say to those who asked, acknowledging while at the same time knowing, telling myself, asking –little?Now, there was an understatement. The last time I was back in the country, on Home Leave, I attended ten funerals. Ten, in two weeks. All, funerals of young people – people under the age of thirty-five years. And all those funerals, in that short space of time, in but one section of Gugulethu … All of them …It would have been bad enough were there ten in all of Gugulethu. Gugulethu alone. Gugulethu, with its close to 100 000 residents. To lose so many in so short a space of time. And all of them so young. So very, very young … ‘…AIDS … HIV-positive…’ These were words whispered; whispered and never said out loud, never announced at the funerals. People were dying of all and every disease known to humanity, except AIDS. It took time to see, know, realise that the causes of death doctors wrote on death certificates were, in reality, AIDS-related diseases. People didn’t die of AIDS. They died from pneumonia, TB, etc. but, in actual fact, had become prone to these diseases because their immune systems were compromised. And that is what HIV translated to, meant. In the early days, when AIDS was still but a rumour and we knew no one it had touched, I attended the first (for me) AIDS conference, in New York. This was at a church in mid-Manhattan. A South African nurse had organised it. Then, I knew very little about the disease. That was the time we still held the mistaken notion it was something that killed gay men. I remember I didn’t particularly want to attend the conference, which was over a weekend. But Nonceba Lubanga is not only a loyal friend but one of those you don’t say no to – you better do as she says, or else … I was surprised to find a sizeable number of South Africans in attendance. My surprise was doubled at seeing even a sprinkling of men – less than ten, but still … What I learned from that conference left me numb. Looking back, I now know I still had not grasped the magnitude of what was about to befall us. I

remember the spine-chilling words:By the year 2000, there will hardly be a family, in South Africa, not touched by AIDS…hardly a family… I do not recall hearing words such as ‘plague’ or ‘pandemic’. But I still recall the palpable, overwhelming sense of doom with which I left the conference. I do not recall ever being that scared in my entire life. No. Not the heavy, oppressive fear that, at the same time, leaves one feeling devoid of any power to avert a dreadful disaster that is fast approaching. Doom foretold, doom inescapable. A sense of everything I had known disappearing fast, my world turned upside-down, unrecognisable, deadly. Did I do anything? Anything that could avert the disaster? I’m not saying I could have. I’m not saying that any one person could have done that. But where’s the harm in trying? I hear you ask, ‘What does she think she could have done?’ Believe me, I ask myself that same question. But, are we saying nothing can be done? That nothing could have been done way back then, when on the whole, the plague might have still been containable? Or is that a picture of the impossible, the unattainable? Is humanity damned through its own acts of uncaring/carelessness/unmindfulness? All I did, in my bewilderment, is picture which one of my nieces or nephews would be affected. In my mind’s eye, I’d see them all and wonder: Will it be this one? Or that one? Can you believe how stupid I was? How ill informed? Who had told me the disease would pick onlyonemember, per family? That the plague should be that considerate, that mindful of our folly, that courteous. But I utterly lacked the capacity to imagine the workings of a plague. One has to remember that the word ‘plague’, certainly in my own little mind, was a word associated with a long-distant past. With the time before antibiotics and improved standards of hygiene, a time of indiscriminate overcrowding accompanied with poor or total lack of sanitation, etc., etc. Plague belonged to the Middle Ages, the Black Death, 1918. How the hell could we be talking of a plague in the late twentieth century? We were advanced, as a species. We could give people new body parts – hearts, kidneys, eyes; remodel damaged faces. Why wouldn’t we have something, some cure, to stop this disease? But that was the state of my thinking then. Even as I staggered under the weight of the imminent assault on our lives, I still didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of that assault, the huge wave of devastation. Perhaps it was denial. Perhaps I didn’t want to understand what all these dire predictions