Mother to Mother

Mandisa’s pen scorches the page from South Africa’s apartheid-scarred townships, writing to the American mother of Amy Biehl—the white Fulbright scholar her own Black son has murdered—so two grieving women can meet at the crossroad where Racial Justice, Gender Equality, and colonial fallout still collide like speeding taxis. She walks you through corrugated-iron lanes patrolled by hunger and curfews, shows how school desks built more rage than algebra, and admits how systemic brutality trained boys to wield knives before they could vote. Mandisa refuses to excuse the crime; instead, she dissects a society that fed violence to children the way elders pass down lullabies, then pleads for a bridge of empathy wide enough to ferry both mothers across their private oceans of loss. Inspired by the real 1993 killing of Biehl, this letter-shaped novel hammers injustice into intimate dialogue, offering classrooms a raw lens on apartheid’s living aftershocks and faith groups a soul-stirring call to reconciliation. One urgent question flickers like a veld fire: can shared heartbreak plant seeds strong enough to crack concrete history? Tap the blue ➕ to Save to List for later inspiration, or hit the bold arrow to Learn More and connect your classroom, youth group, or congregation to Mandisa’s fearless quest for understanding.