Everyday Matters

This important book brings together the previously unpublishedletters of three women, Lilian Ngoyi, Bessie Head and Dora Taylor.While Ngoyi, Head and the lesser-known Taylor each made vital andperhaps under-appreciated contributions to the southern Africanstruggle, these letters record their ordinary, domestic lives as well astouching on the socio-political struggles which they conducted fromwithin their homes.Bessie Head was a writer of novels, short stories and social history,and towards the end of her life was celebrated internationally. DoraTaylor, a white woman who was an early member of the Non-EuropeanUnity Movement (NEUM), was also a writer, but her longerwork, was not published until after her death and she is still not awidely known public figure. Lilian Ngoyi was an ANC leader and oneof the organisers of the 1956 Women’s March to the Union Buildingsin Pretoria and she was repeatedly arrested for her involvement intrade union and political matters.Each woman writes to one trusted friend or relative. Ngoyi, Headand Taylor did not know each other but are linked by their politicalsympathies, their comparable vocations and practices, and by thefact that each had to endure her own version of exile as a result ofher activities. These letters record all three writers’ joys and sorrowsas they struggled to live principled lives in adversity. As well as givingaccess to the thoughts of three remarkable women letter-writers,this timely book presents letters as literary artefacts, not just sourcesof information and opinion. It invites readers to taste the intriguingand sometimes disturbing pleasures of reading personal letters.