Everyday life after the violence

To create politically relevant literature, says Njabulo Ndebele, the author must be attentive to nuances in ordinary people’s lives. His genre-busting novel, The Cry of Winnie Mandela, is regarded as one of the most important books published in South Africa since the fall of apartheid. It tells the story of four “ordinary” women and one extraordinary one – Winnie Mandela – and asks whether South Africa can be a home after all the violence, the exiles, the destruction.

On the weekend of the festival, exactly 30 years have passed since Mandela was released from prison. Ndebele meets literary researcher Tonje Vold for a conversation on building an ordinary life in society and literature after the apartheid regime.

In English.