The Calling of Katie Makanya: A Memoir of South Africa

Margaret McCord makes brilliant use of telling details drawn from the vivid recollections of Makanya (1873-1954) to create a rich tapestry of black South African life as it uneasily adapted to (and sometimes adopted) white European ways during the years of colonization and the establishment of apartheid. Makanya declined the offer of a singing career in England to return home, choosing hard work and poverty among her own people. She offers perceptive descriptions of complex individual and social relationships that work by an accumulation of particulars to damningly indict injustice.