a conspiracy of mothers by colleen van niekerk

Her return marks the beginning of a physical and spiritual journey that engulfs all three women. One night, in a somnolent state, Yolanda hears her mother’s voice calling across continents asking her to come home.After much deliberation and a degree of trepidation, Yolanda returns to South Africa when the country is on the cusp of apartheid’s end and Mandela’s incipient election. She is living in a small rural town in Virginia and has not returned home to Cape Town in eighteen years.Her self imposed absence from South Africa stems from the aftermath of an illegal liaison that produced her daughter Ingrid. The unfolding stories of grandmother Rachel, daughter Yolanda and granddaughter Ingrid illustrate how this oppressive system affects the psyche and personal choices of individuals in every level of society. Families, homes, communities and individuals were torn apart, as this law and the rest of ‘grand apartheid’s ‘ legislation impacted what it meant to be a human being.The consequences of this continue as aftershocks in South African society today.” “ This clinical act of classification was devastating and far reaching.

In the book’s foreword, the author explains the South African racial classifications and offers some pointed observations. Their saga spans continents and lays bare the consequences of organizing a society by racial classifications. This extremely moving novel examines the debilitating effects of apartheid from an intensely personal perspective.The story focuses on three generations of women in the same family. Ingrid’s very existence is proof of a white man’s crime, and that man’s mother will do anything―even kill―to ensure the truth remains buried.Īn evocative debut novel set during a defining period in history, A Conspiracy of Mothers tells a gripping story of love and betrayal from multiple perspectives while deftly balancing the painful legacy of apartheid with the trials of motherhood.

While there Yolanda longs to reconnect with her estranged daughter, Ingrid, the product of an illegal mixed-race affair with a white man.īut Ingrid is missing, and as Yolanda quickly discovers, she isn’t the only woman in Cape Town desperate to protect her own. Against a backdrop of apartheid and racial violence, traumatized artist Yolanda Petersen returns from the Appalachian foothills to the land of her youth at the behest of her mother. The year is 1994, and South Africa is in political turmoil as its first democratic election looms. From a bold new voice in literary fiction comes a compelling story of three mothers whose lives intersect during a generation-defining period in South Africa’s history.

A conspiracy of mothers by colleen van niekerk