Published in 2008, Kopano Matlwa’s debut novel tells the story of two young women who have grown up Black in white suburbs in South Africa as they struggle to find their identities.
Ntozake Shange’s first work and most critically acclaimed theater piece was published in 1975. The work combines choreography and poetry in a series of 20 separate poems that tells intertwined stories of love and loss between seven nameless African-American women. It has since been turned into a film.
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