Life's Mosaic : The Autobiography of Pyllis Ntantala

Raised in a family of landed gentry located in Transkei, a region now part of South Africa, during the early 20th century, this vivid and spirited autobiography shares the unique story of a black woman’s search for identity and fulfillment through turbulent times. Phyllis Ntantala’s gripping story is not of a struggle to escape from poverty but of a life of relative privilege that typically cut across the boundaries of apartheid. In the early 1960s, when the restrictive net of apartheid grew ever tighter, she moved to the United States; but instead of finding freedom and opportunity, she found racial discriminations that were sadly too familiar. Evocatively described with searing honesty, the politics and feminism of this narrative are grounded in the need to carve out a space for one's own voice.