Self-published, 2022.
by Desiree Lewis
South African feminist writer, Gertrude Fester, was among the group of political prisoners who spent over 100 days in solitary confinement on Robben Island in the mid-1980s. In what became known as the Yengeni Trial, the trial of this group of activists, as well as their detention, dramatic accusation for “treason” and incarceration (which for many included days of solitary confinement), was one of the high-profile displays of gross apartheid injustice at the height of the decades-long Afrikaner Nationalist rule in South Africa. Fester’s book reflects on all this while exploring her experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa. It also reflects on her political and professional career as a feminist and teacher in post-apartheid South Africa and beyond. The book is therefore striking in locating the author’s prison experiences within the context of several decades of African feminist intersectional struggle. In many ways, then, Fester can be seen to be contributing to what is known as an “inter-generational conversa- tion” about feminist struggle; her battle is exemplified in her detention at the end of the twentieth century. At the same time, her struggle – as a feminist; a humanitarian committed to social justice; an African focused on the fate of this continent’s postcolonial reconstruction; and a lesbian sharply alert to sexual rights and justice – straddles several trajectories and periods. In this sense, it is reminiscent of the autobiographically inflected work of a feminist like the late Molara Ogundipe Leslie (1940-2019), whose life, politics and writing reflected on colonial, authoritarian, and changing postcolonial injustices as well as the role of African feminism in a global context.
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