Title: Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa's Past
Author: Lauren Beukes
Publisher: Struik Publishers
Imprint: Oshun Books
Cape Town, South Africa 2005
ISBN 9781770070509 / ISBN 978-1-77007-050-9
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 256 pages
Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa's Past is not a history book. If you're looking for a dense and weighty tome crammed with dates, facts and socio-political-economic analyses, and lessons to be learned so you can say 'I saw that coming!' when people in the present cock up in exactly the same way they did in the past, I'm afraid to say this isn't it. It's also not an academic treatise, a feminist manifesto or the definitive guide to every woman who left huge indelible marks on the pages of South African history. It might help to think of this book not as a book, but as a hypothetical cocktail party. And not the staid variety where some tiresome bore in a stuffed shirt with a stuffed Vienna on a pointy stick corners you and blabs endlessly about socio-political-economic analyses. This party, with all these women in one place, would be a rambunctious mix. No, the hardest part of writing this was limiting the scope to just 18 women (and one big cat) out of the hundreds of exceptional and fascinating characters from the last 350 years. We decided to focus on women whose tales had already wound up, whether because they're deceased or, in stripper Glenda Kemp's case, retired. Over months of research and interviews, we meticulously compiled the short list you hold in your hands, a sample smattering of some of the most riveting and rollicking life stories from South Africa.
The Upfront Bit
Acknowledgements
Pure Poison: Daisy de Melker
Venus on a Leash: Sara Bartmann
The Fabulist: Helen Martins
The Curious Case of the Cross-dressing Doctor: Dr James Barry
The Ontvlugting: Ingrid Jonker
Lady In Red: Ruth First
It's All Dolly: Dolly Rathebe
The Brothel Queen & The Alabama: Black Sophie
The Reluctant Amazon: Sarah Raal
The Hungry Artist: Irma Stern
The Blood Sun: Nongquawuse
The Ships Cat: Rifles, the leopard
The Feminist Farm Girl: Olive Schreiner
The Snake Charmer: Glenda Kemp
The Struggle Sisters: Helen Joseph & Lillian Ngoyi
The Interpreter: Krotoa-Eva
The Woman Who Loved an Alien: Elizabeth Klarer
The Outcast with the Heart on Fire: Bessie Head
The Magnificent Ma-Brrrr: Brenda Fassie
Select Bibliography
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