Beverley Abrahams

Beverley Abrahams is a South African politician. She was initially appointed to the National Council of Provinces in October 2010 as a Democratic Alliance representative. She announced her defection to the African National Congress in March 2014. Abrahams was elected to the lower house, the National Assembly, after that year's general election. She left Parliament in May 2019.

QUOTES

• The main theme is love, across the divisions of a colour line that was carved in stone. Secondly, it is the displacement suffered by black people under Colonialism, and the displacement of those foreigners who came out to Africa; a displacement which I feel created questions of identity. For Sivangane, it changes her concept of everything she believed she was. I am truly honoured by your comparison, I love the works of Chinua Achebe and Ngũgĩ, I fell in love with African stories through their books!
  • [1]
• The bones of the story are actually true, and I feel quite honoured to be the custodian of my family’s history. I have one aunt who remembers the story, from her father, the younger son of Mr Stoddart. Unfortunately, my mother is losing her memory, and I am driven to capture these stories before they are lost from my history. In many ways, this story unfolded in my mind like a movie, I could imagine each scene as I described it, and I tried to create the graphic detail that would allow the reader to see it too. The story is also fiction in that I could only imagine how this relationship between a black woman and a white man could have endured against the strictures of Colonialism. For me, it is a love story.
  • [2]
• Perhaps not so easily defined, is the issue of language and our need to verbalise through the words that we know, in Sivangane and Mr Stoddart, we see the need for a different kind of dialogue that can not be found in their respective languages. There are so many works, across many genres. I love the works of writers who can craft a story that holds a reader spellbound. For me, some of these storytellers are Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Doris Lessing, Isabel Allende, Paulo Coello, Margaret Atwood and Barbara Kingsolver. There are so many!!
  • [3]