The Fires Beneath: The Life of Monica Wilson, South African Anthropologist

Title: The Fires Beneath
Subtitle: The Life of Monica Wilson, South African Anthropologist
Author: Sean Morrow
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Imprint: Penguin Books
Cape Town, South Africa, 2016
ISBN‎ 9781776090396 / ISBN 978-1-77-609039-6
Hardcover, dustjacket, 16 x 24 cm, 472 pages, 3 maps

About: The Fires Beneath. The Life of Monica Wilson, South African Anthropologist

The life of Monica Wilson is a story of groundbreaking scholarship, passionate creativity and personal tragedy during South Africa's bitter and divided twentieth century. As a young anthropologist in the 1930s, Monica immersed herself in the lives, work and beliefs of African communities in southern and East Africa, while carefully observing the effects of historical change. At the core of her existence was her intellectual collaboration and intense personal relationship with her husband, the brilliant but clinically depressive Godfrey Wilson, who took his own life in 1944. After Godfrey's death, Monica raised their two children and built a career as a leading academic, at Fort Hare, Rhodes University College and the University of Cape Town.

In a political environment where black academics were under constant threat and ideas were censored, she outspokenly advocated racial equality and freedom of speech, her publications emphasising a common South African identity and implicitly challenging apartheid 'separate development'. This fascinating biography moves between the Eastern Cape, Cambridge, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Cape Town. It explores the relationship between anthropology and history, and the tensions between liberalism, Christianity, Marxism and apartheid ideology. Drawing on the letters and diaries left by Monica and Godfrey Wilson, this is a powerful story about politics, race, war, faith, love and loss.

Content: The Fires Beneath. The Life of Monica Wilson, South African Anthropologist

Preface
Abbreviations
Maps
Lovedale, Hogsback, Scotland, Port Elizabeth, 1908-1927
Cambridge, 1927-1930
Tyhume, Pondoland, Farms, East London, 1931-1932
Cambridge, London, Lovedale, 1933-1934
buNyakyusa, 1934-1935
London, 1936
buNyakyusa, 1936-1937
Northern Rhodesia, 1938-1941
Hogsback, Union Defence Force, 1941-1944
Fort Hare, 1944-1946
Grahamstown, 1947-1951
Cape Town, 1952-1973: UCT
Cape Town, 1952-1973: Scholarship
Cape Town, 1952-1973: Politics
Cape Town, 1952-1973: Personal
Hogsback, 1974-1982
Sources
Notes
Index