Take to the streets

Last week, on the streets of Joburg, I approached three young women and asked if I could read them a chapter of my book, Lost Where We Belong.

Lehlogonolo, Mpho and Gracious are all students at a business school in Braamfontein. We had never met before.

I explained that I had written a book in which I confront the legacy of our racist history, and the difficulty of transformation of the human soul. I told them that the book was struggling to find a publisher because the publishing industry – both in South Africa, and internationally – doesn’t believe there is a big enough market for a book that confronts issues of racism, prejudice, fear and ignorance from a white point of view because the topic is “too upsetting”. I told them I was done with being silenced and had decided to read the book out loud on the streets.

I read them Chapter 1, Another White Girl in Africa. See the video above.

When I had finished I asked Lehlogonolo what she thought.

“It’s good to listen to this. I was born in 1995. I don’t really know what happened because no one will talk to me about the past. What I do know is that it is still on everyone’s mind, they are still stuck on it.  We need to hear this so they can finally let go and we can all be free.”

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