You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town

by Zoë Wicomb

Book Overview

In this searing novel--praised by Toni Morrison as "seductive, brilliant, and precious"--Zo Wicomb chronicles a woman's lifelong struggle with identity in apartheid-era South Africa.

The daughter of "Coloured" parents in rural South Africa, Frieda Shenton is taught to emulate whites: speak standard English, straighten her hair, and do more than, as her father instructs, "peg out the madam's washing." While a self-conscious...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558612254
• ISBN13: 9781558612259
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Feminist Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Wonderfully Subtle

Some of the linked stories in this collection were better than others. Freida is Colored in South Africa and becomes the (fat) girl who does well and goes to a private school and later to England. I loved the details - particularly the subtle, non-explaining ways in which Wicomb addresses Apartheid. (sometimes, though, I wanted a little bit of telling to explain some things and make them clearer) In the final story, Freida is about to have a story collection published, which perhaps means that we can assume there is much autobiography here. Freida/Wicomb feels both shame and guilt and a reluctant love for who she is and where she comes from. And she so wonderfully shows, in the most subtle of ways, how hair is a major political issue for people of color.

A masterful writer

Wicomb is simply the most stunning writer I've come across in ages. Written and published during apartheid (1987), the book has a political history of its own. The beauty of this book, though, is that the art comes first and creates a poignant space for Wicomb's deftly-constructed discussions on South African race, class and gender politics. I've read and taught this book for two years and, with each read, it keeps getting better.