Zoë Wicomb (1948–2025)

"Playing in the light' is/was a South African expression equivalent to 'passing for white'. This happened very often when a light skinned "Coloured" person could re-invent themselves as a white person with all the benefits that being white conferred. Marion Campbell, the protagonist of the novel, is a young white business woman who has founded her own successful travel agency. Her mother, with whom she had had a rocky relationship, is dead and her elderly father lives alone in the family show more home where Marion keeps an eye on him, providing food, help and support. The book starts in 1990s SA, Apartheid has been toppled, the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings are slowly but surely uncovering the wrong-doings which occured since the Nationalist Party came into power at the end of WW2. The story jumps back to the early life of Marion's parents, how they moved from the countryside to Cape Town and the life they forged for themselves there; Marion, in the 1990s is beginning to realise that her family has secrets she didn't know, and that who she thought she was may not be true. Little by little she uncovers the skeletons in the family closet, and with some difficulty comes to discover who she actually is.
From the aspect of 'playing in the light' it is a powerful description of the warped country SA became under the tyranny of the Afrikaanse government, and how it affected the entire population in so many subtle and not-so subtle ways. Having said that, although much of the writing is absolutely beautiful (describing the night sky in the city as being a 'brown marmalade' colour unlike the magnificent clarity of country skies), the story is very strung out, with episodes that sound autobiographical but which don't really move the plot forwards. Some of the characters are very real, but I found Marion a bit strange and enigmatic, couldn't even work out how old she was.
There is a real sense of place in the novel, as Cape Town is portrayed so clearly, with the geographical proximity of living near or far from the mountain echoing the racial divides of society;
The book badly needs a glossary as the author uses a lot of Afrikaans and also the Cape Coloured and Boer patois as well as SA English slang. With out knowledge of these, the reader misses out a great deal. show less

well-wrought literary novel about family secrets, choices about childrearing and relationships between women and between women and men. mercia is accomplished, intelligent and childfree, and reeling after a breakup with a long-term boyfriend who decided he wanted children after all. she returns to south africa from her exile life in scotland to confront/help her wayward brother and his family, which is riddled with secrets and shame. i love how wicomb draws merica as flawed and full of show more herself at the same time that she struggles for love and to love. more people should read zoe wicomb. show less

Poetic - and yet not my cup of tea at all,, 29 January 2015

This review is from: YOU CAN'T GET LOST IN CAPETOWN (Paperback)
Published in 1987, this is a series of ten vignettes of life in S Africa. All ten are narrated by the same character, Frieda Shenton, a 'respectable Coloured', and are little chronological glimpses into her life in the apartheid state.
I found it difficult to review this book: Ms Wicomb's writing is poetic with threads of deeper meaning, and yet I didn't find it at all show more interesting. I use the word 'vignettes' rather than 'stories' as many of them didn't seem to be the latter.
Ten out of ten for creative writing, but I was glad to get to the end! show less

Under the cruel restrictions of apartheid, the personal and the political became inextricably linked. This book is written as a series of linking short stories telling how a young coloured girl from the provinces comes to CapeTown and gets a university degree. As a result she is able to leave South Africa and live abroad but eventually returns to her land and her folk.