Lauretta Ngcobo and Annemarie Wolpe Meet for the First Time at the Franschhoek Literary Festival
Palesa Morudu chaired the “Prodigal Daughters” session at the Franschhoek Literary Festival last weekend and has written about her highlight from the festival for Business Day.
Morudu chaired Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Bell, Ruth Carneson, Gonda Perez and Annemarie Wolpe’s discussion of Prodigal Daughters: Stories of South African Women in Exile. Describing the book, she says that “These women poured their hearts out in the book, narrating harrowing stories of escape, attempts to settle in foreign lands, the politics of exile, coming of age and the confusion about where and what is home.”
Morudu writes that “the highlight was witnessing the meeting of Ngcobo and Wolpe, who came face to face in Franschhoek for the first time, despite having shared a similar life experience spanning almost 50 years…Seeing these two women, both in their 80s now, hug each other after discovering how their histories intertwined, was one of those truly special South African moments.”:
This past weekend was the annual meeting for lovers of fiction, history, politics, poetry, humour, wine and food. The Franschhoek Literary Festival is growing as a meeting place to contemplate the history and future of the written word in South Africa. World-renowned historian and the author of Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin, Antony Beevor, provided a welcome antidote to the all-too-common South African tendency to navel-gaze. His account of the battle for Stalingrad during the Second World War makes the fight against apartheid seem like a walk in the park.
Book details
- Prodigal Daughters: Stories of South African Women in Exile edited by Lauretta Ngcobo
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EAN: 9781869142346
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