Neshani Andreas (1964–2011)

The purple violet of Oshaantu, Andreas's only novel, is based on her experience teaching in a village in the north of Namibia in the 1990s. As elsewhere in Southern Africa, the village is largely the province of women, whilst the men are away for long periods in the mines or on fishing boats. Andreas tells the story of two of these women, Ali and her neighbour and close friend Kauna. Whilst Ali considers her own marriage to be happy and successful, Kauna is trapped in marriage to the awful show more Shange, who subjects her to terrible domestic violence when he is at home, and openly maintains a mistress in a house he has built for her elsewhere in the village. Everyone in the village knows about Shange's bad behaviour, but no-one has been prepared to intervene. Ali goes to the church elders for help, but they are horrified at the thought of interfering in a marriage, and even her normally supportive husband warns her not to make a fool of herself. Eventually, an old woman with nothing to lose in community standing confronts Shange in public, and he moderates his behaviour a little.

But then Shange dies suddenly, probably of a heart attack, and Kauna finds hordes of Shange's family descending on her, accusing her of poisoning, witchcraft, and worse, as they strip her of her property. As a widow she might have legal rights in theory, but in practice she is powerless to assert them.

Andreas also touches on quite a number of other issues in the course of this short, simply-written and very engaging novel: another widow is accused of witchcraft when her husband dies of AIDS-related illness, Kauna's aunt makes a precarious living as a market trader, Ali's husband is injured in a collision between overloaded minibuses, and so on. At the very centre of the story is a lively okakungungu, a working party where all the women of the village come together over food and freshly-brewed beer to help Kauna finish her ploughing before the rains. show less

You know the James Brown line “It’s a man’s world, but it wouldn't be nothing without a woman or a girl.” That’s essentially what this book is about: life in a Namibian village in a culture where men hold all the cards but women hold it all together. It’s a play of Kauna’s abusive marriage against the infinitely better one of her best friend Ali.

I wouldn’t say this is great literature. It seemed uncertain if it was a story about friendship or jeremiad against patriarchy. It show more could have been both, I suppose, but it ended up just slightly missing either.

Nonetheless, I’d recommend it. It’s extremely readable with colorful characters. I particularly enjoyed how Kauna morphed from a punching bag to a defier of all who told her what was “proper” behavior for a widow at a husband’s death. And it’s a part of the world not often seen in stories. show less

Andreas' book examines the role of women in a small village in Namibia via the lives of two friends. Ali is very happily married, but is forced to watch as her best friend (Kauna) is beaten, abused and cheated on by her husband. When her husband dies suddenly, Kauna is accused of murder, witchcraft or, at the least, failure to keep her man happy. It seems that whatever goes wrong in a marriage is always the woman's fault, almost by definition. Ali comments on Kauna's life, and on those of show more other women who have had similar problems in their lives, and tries to understand the lot of women in her society.
'The Purple Violet' is not, perhaps, an example of great writing, but is a very effectively told parable. Andreas uses flashbacks to tell anecdotes about women Ali has known, which is something I think can be difficult to do without disrupting a story too much. However, Ali is a very likeable protagonist, and the book is skillfully enough written so that it stays well away from becoming a series of vaguely connected anecdotes. An interesting addition to the literature examining a 'mans world' from a woman's perspective, from a place often not on the literary map. show less

Two women from different domestic situations: Kauna is married to a man who beats her and treats her physically and mentally unbelievably. And Ali is married to a great man who treats her wonderfully, so wonderfully that he has family members worried that Ali has him "under her thumb". A feminist approach to different marital situations and a call to action and awareness of women's experience in Namibia.

When Ali hears Kauna let out a chilling scream, she believes her husband is again beating show more her. When she arrives at her home, she finds Kauna's husband dead. He was not ill, so the number one suspect is Kauna. She comes under more suspicion when she does not mourn the loss of her husband - but how can one blame her? Married to a man who hates her, beats her and does not love her. His death was a kind of divorce for her, free of him - how can she mourn that? However, the rest of the society does not see it that way. show less