MEET THE AUTHOR: BIANCA MARAIS
A virtual event
Tuesday, April 13th 7:00-8:30 p.m.
South African born Bianca Marais, before becoming an author, ran a non-profit organisation working with HIV/AIDS orphans and their caregivers in Soweto for ten years. Her two novels deal with themes of identity, race, love, family and loss against the backdrop of apartheid and the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Bianca will make a 50 minute presentation followed by a Question and Answer period afterwards.
This event is being organized by Lisa Post, Orangeville Town Councillor and Booklore, an independent bookstore in Orangeville with the support of Bianca Marais. A portion of all books sales will be donated to Village of Love Canada. We are very grateful for their generosity and enthusiastic support.
REGISTRATION
Two options:
1. Event + one book for $30.00 (indicate which book you are choosing);
2. Event + two books for $50.00
Books can be shipped at a flat rate of $8.00.
You can opt to make an additional donation to Village of Love Canada for a food basket ($45.00) or a month’s school fees for a girl ($25.00).
Payments by credit card or etransfer.
To register:
Call 519-942-3830, or email, booklore@bellnet.ca.
When you register, please provide the following information: your name and shipping address (if you live outside of Orangeville); your selection of book, if applicable; donation amount, if applicable; your preferred method of payment.
ABOUT THE BOOKS
If You Want To Make God Laugh
A rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in post-Apartheid South Africa who are brought together in their darkest time and discover the ways that love can transcend the strictest of boundaries.
In a squatter camp on the outskirts of Johannesburg, seventeen-year-old Zodwa lives in desperate poverty, under the shadowy threat of a civil war and a growing AIDS epidemic. Eight months pregnant, Zodwa carefully guards secrets that jeopardize her life.
Across the country, wealthy socialite Ruth appears to have everything her heart desires, but it’s what she can’t have that leads to her breakdown. Meanwhile, in Zaire, a disgraced former nun, Delilah, grapples with a past that refuses to stay buried. When these personal crises send both middle-aged women back to their rural hometown to heal, the discovery of an abandoned newborn baby upends everything, challenging their lifelong beliefs about race, motherhood, and the power of the past.
As the mystery surrounding the infant grows, the complicated lives of Zodwa, Ruth, and Delilah become inextricably linked. What follows is a mesmerizing look at family and identity that asks: How far will the human heart go to protect itself and the ones it loves?
Hum If You Don’t Know The Words
The Secret Life of Bees set in Johannesburg, now in paperback. A perceptive and searing debut about Apartheid South Africa, as told through the story of one unique family brought together by tragedy.
Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a nine-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation, but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband’s death. Their meeting should never have occurred…until The Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, leaving Robin’s parents dead and Beauty’s daughter missing.
In the aftermath, Beauty is hired to care for Robin, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty reunites with her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences.
Told through Beauty and Robin’s alternating perspectives, the two narratives interweave to create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid South Africa. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.