Great Texts/Big Questions: Sisonke Msimang

Using Njabulo Ndebele’s notion of ‘neither elevating nor condemning without a concomitant sense of doubt’ this lecture will look at how Winnie Mandela and Nelson Mandela serve as proxies for ideas about our history and the end of apartheid. Moving beyond the heroes and villains paradigm for both figures, the lecture centres on how South Africans might begin to fight for a future in which there is room for doubt, a future in which expressing the fine line is a collective responsibility. 

Sisonke Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A Memoir of exile and home and the editor of Pride and Prejudice: African perspectives on gender, social justice and sexuality. Msimang is a contributing editor at Africa is a Country, and serves as head of oral storytelling at the Centre for Stories. Msimang writes regularly for Al Jazeera, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and a rage of international publications. She divides her time between South Africa and Australia.

Wednesday 23 May, 6pm (refreshments from 5.30pm)
Hiddingh Hall, UCT Hiddingh Campus
RSVP: ica@uct.ac.za

Photo credit: Nick White