If I were given five minutes with my younger self-that little girl who cried every time we had to leave for another country-I would hold her tight and not say a word. I would just be still and have her feel my beating heart, a thud to echo her own-a silent message that, no matter the outcome, she would survive and be stronger and happier than she might think as she stood at the threshold of each new home.
Sisonke Msimang was born in exile, the daughter of South African freedom fighters. Always Another Country is the story of a young girl's path to womanhood-a journey that took her from Africa to America and back again, then on to a new home in Australia.
Frank, fierce and insightful, she reflects candidly on the abuse she suffered as a child, the naive, heady euphoria of returning at last to her parents' homeland-and her disillusionment with present-day South Africa and its new elites. Sisonke Msimang is a bold new voice on feminism, race and politics-in her beloved South Africa, in Australia, and around the world.
Always Another Country : A Memoir of Exile and Home
Description
Author Description
Sisonke Msimang was born in exile to South African parents-a freedom fighter and an accountant-and raised in Zambia, Kenya and Canada before studying in the US as an undergraduate. Her family returned to South Africa after apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s.
Sisonke has held fellowships at Yale University, the Aspen Institute and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and is a regular contributor to the Guardian, Daily Maverick and New York Times. She now lives in Perth, Australia, where she is head of oral storytelling at the Centre for Stories.