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Recently widowed, Angelina Ibe, a smart, evangelical Christian and school teacher goes on an early morning evangelising mission and intentionally kills a python, one of the major totems in her community, Umuocha. This abominable act – at least viewed from the community’s perspective, brings her into direct collision with Umuocha’s guardians of tradition, led by the arch-conservative prime minister of Umuocha, Mazi Ikenga. Inevitably, the Igwe (King) of Umuocha, formerly a lawyer with a thriving practice in England, is embroiled in the drama. Whose side will he take and how far does Angelina’s battle go? Find out as you read this epic battle of wills that pits Angelina against time-honoured patriarchal institutions and individuals, determined to get their way by every means and at all cost.
The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights is a collection of case studies spanning a wide range of concerns about music and human rights in response to intensifying challenges to the well-being of individuals, peoples, and the planet. It brings forward the expertise of academic researchers, lawyers, human rights practitioners, and performing musicians who offer critical reflection on how their work might identify, inform, or advance mutual interests in their respective fields. The book is comprised of 28 chapters, interspersed with 23 ‘voices’ – portraits that focus on individuals’ intimate experiences with music in the defence or advancement of human rights – and explores the following four themes: 1) Fundamentals on music and human rights; 2) Music in pursuit of human rights; 3) Music as a means of violating human rights; 4) Human rights and music: intrinsic resonances.
"We know what's best for our children." Burnt out after years as a professional dancer, Ella Burchell moves to a small town on the KwaZulu Natal north coast hoping to rebuild her life. Things look up when she gets a job teaching dance to children at a for-profit private school. But Ella hasn't reckoned with the cabal of private-school mums who run the Pines Academy as their own personal fiefdom. Circling into cliques at the school gates every morning, the mums are a force to be reckoned with. Soon Ella is too busy fielding their demands to concentrate on her own troubles. Distraction arrives in the form of an attractive cricket coach, but Ella hardly has time to pay attention. Fun, fast-paced and hilarious, this novel by an award-winning author skewers the world of private-school privilege.
“I wish I had a sister who loved me so fiercely.” Surya and Anjani are twins, but they could not be more different. Anjani is calm, devout and responsible, while Surya just wants to party the days away. When they leave the safety of their affluent Durban suburb to attend university in the Eastern Cape, Anjani knows where her duty lies – to look after Surya at all costs. There is no way their conservative Hindu parents would have let them go otherwise. But fate intervenes in the form of a vicious assault, and for a while it seems as though the twins’ bond may be shattered forever. As they start rebuilding their lives, little do they know that divine providence is on their side.
Then a Wind Blew is set in the final months of the war in Rhodesia, before it became Zimbabwe, and the story unfolds through the voices of three women. Susan Haig, a white settler, has lost one son in the war and seen her other son declared 'unfit for duty'. Nyanye Maseka has fled with her sister to a guerrilla camp in Mozambique, her home village destroyed, her mother missing. Beth Lytton is a nun in a church mission in an African Reserve, watching her adopted country tear itself apart. The three women have nothing in common. Yet the events of war conspire to draw them into each other's lives in a way that none of them could have imagined. This absorbing and sensitive novel develops and intertwines their stories, showing us the ugliness of war for women caught up in it and reminding us that, in the end, we all depend on each other.
The Switch is the story of the travails of Chelimo , a brilliant young girl from Kapchorwa, Eastern Uganda, whose life, when she is circumcised, in accordance with the tradition of her tribe, takes a horrendous turn. Chelimo’s struggles in the life are at odds with the promises she was given at circumcision and as a government minister, she embarks on a delicate personal crusade to ensure that the girls of her tribe do not ever have to face the dangers posed by the knife. But not everyone is happy with her crusade.
Skye is looking for normal. She grew up different and it rankles. Home isnt normal; her mom isnt normal. Her brother, beloved as he is, isnt quite normal, either. Her marriage was kind of normal (Cam is a wealthy, handsome man whos nice enough) and now its a dumpster fire. And look at South Africaentirely NOT normal. Shes got PTSD and shes in mourning. She doesnt know who she is or what she wants. She tries to anchor herself to tangible things: to her cooking, to her neighbours children, to sex. But as she relives her past and tries to plan her future, she feels increasingly dislocated. Skye escapes when things get overwhelming, and realises almost too late that shes about to make everything worse.
Dzigbordi Dzordzome, a young woman from a strict Ghanaian home, struggles between the desire to forge her own identity, please her parent, and marry her college sweetheart Maxwell Owusu. Dzigbordi eventually leaves for the US, where she has to adjust to the realities of a culture she has imagined from books and movies. Her friendships and experiences in the US inevitably affect her relationships back in Ghana, and change her perceptions of herself and her homeland.
Evelyn Ndangeh, a pretty Cameroonian teenager brought up in a strict Christian home, vows to preserve her maidenhood until she gets married to a man she truly loves. While in Our Lady of Lourdes College Mankon, she is approached by Lesley Njapa a student of Cameroon Protestant College Bali, after a student of CCAST Bambili. Evelyn turns him down only to find later that she cant stay alone without a man who must be none other than Lesley. Evelyn begins frantic moves to entice Lesley but on meeting him it seems too late though she gets close to his heart. Tragedy strikes when Lesley is involved in a motor accident. Evelyn arrives Bamenda general hospital wailing and settles beside Lesley to console and comfort him in his agony. Anxiety builds up to a crescendo and a medical team is mobilised to save Lesleys life.