Storyteller: Sylvia Mdunyelwa - These Are the Things that Sit with Us

These Are the Things that Sit with Us - Book Launch Cape Town, 2 May 2019. What was the impact of apartheid on the lives of South Africans? How are people living with painful memories in their day-to-day lives? How do we conduct research in a manner that respects the dignity and of research participants? These are some of the questions that are explored in a new book titled These Are the Things that Sit with Us, edited by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Friederike Bubenzer and Marietjie Oelofsen and published by Fanele, an imprint of Jacana Media. Working with a group of researchers, the editors compiled a collection of short stories of the enduring impact of experiences of apartheid from people living with the memory of this past in Langa, Bonteheuwel and Worcester. The book makes visible undocumented everyday experiences that shaped the lives of ordinary South Africans during the country’s brutal and painful past. It is a record of things that “sit” within all of us. By sharing their memories, the storytellers map the scope of the wider, and difficult, conversation about the meaning of justice and the missing parts of the discourse of reconciliation in South Africa. It creates a space for a conversation about South Africa’s history and what it means to talk to and to hear the other within the context of this history.