You Can't Get Lost In Cape Town

Zoë Wicomb's complex and deeply evocative fiction is among the most distinguished recent works of South African women's literature. It is also among the only works of fiction to explore the experience of "Coloured" citizens in apartheid-era South Africa, whose mixed heritage traps them. Wicomb deserves a wide American audience, on a par with Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee. Wicomb is a gifted writer, and her compressed narratives work like brilliant splinters in the mind, suggesting a rich rhythm and shape. Her prose is vigorous, textured, lyrical. She is a sophisticated storyteller who combines the open-endedness of contemporary fiction with the force of autobiography and the simplicity of family stories. For course use: African literature, African studies, growing up female, world literature, women's studies. Born in 1948 and raised in Namaqualand, South Africa, Wicomb returned to South Africa in 1991 to teach at the University of the Western Cape. She currently lives in Glasgow and teaches at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.