WOMAN ZONE STORIES

Endometriosis is a disorder that can cause a woman a lot pain on many levels. It can also impact childbearing. In her aptly named book HOT WATER ( Jacana ), Nadine Dirks shares the experience - physical, mental, social and medical - with all the consequences.

The Gathering Bag: Remembering the heroines of traditional San stories is curated by Sue Hollingsworth and Marlene Sullivan Winburg. It brings together ten traditional narratives originally told in the !xun language and retold by storytellers from around the world. In Part 1 professional storyteller Sue Hollingsworth explains. The book published by Manyeka Arts Trust is available through Takealot,...

The Train House on Lobengula Street , is Zimbabwean born writer Fatima Kara's first novel. Featuring some strong women and set in an Indian community in what was then Rhodesia, it comes directly from Fatima's own experience, her memory and her heart. It's published by Envelope and distributed by Blue Weaver.

A gentle book about an ungentle, and all too common, disease. Cancer, navigating the journey by palliative care specialist Cherry Armstrong and published by Quivertree, brings you everything you need to know if cancer comes your way.

Catch some of the mood and all of the music we shared at the Woman Zone year-end, stress-releasing Celebrate Body & Soul party - thanks to singer-songwriter Trudy Rushin

More than just a search for her own real identity, Unathi Kapa’s thought-provoking, self-published memoir will throw light for many on what it’s like growing up not knowing who ‘your people’ are.

When Dr Beryl Botman's husband, Professor Russell Botman died in 2014, she write through her grief in a book called With(out)You. At the launch of her second book Still Love Remains, she spoke to Beryl Eichenberger about her writing journey.

She's a writer, a poet, a teacher and academic, but it's as an editor that Helen Moffett has made an extraordinary and extensive mark in literary circles working on more writers manuscripts than most of us have had hot dinners. Listen here as she shares her secrets.

Taking African storytelling to another level Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi has written two epic, award-winning novels, The First Woman and Kintu as well as a cross-cultural collection of short stories, Manchester Happened. Here she talks about her origins and thinking as a storyteller.

Members of WEAVE, the Women’s Education and Voice Expression collective founded 26 years ago, got together for a reunion to talk about their journeys, individually and as a group, and about their ‘herstorical’ publication ink@boilingpoint: a selection of 21st century black women’s writing from the southern tip of Africa. Listen here to share the inspiration.

How Classification Became Culture is the sub-title of Tessa and Lynsey's book Coloured (Jonathan Ball). It asks many questions, amongst them What does it mean to be Coloured? It also provides many thought-provoking answers. In conversation with writer Nadia Kamies they shared just some of the thinking behind the book.

Award winning author of The Veil of Maya , doctor/writer Chantal Stewart shares the back story to her writing and her debut novel with Beryl Eichenberger .

A book that was a long time in the making, The Sex Lives of African Women is about so many more things than sex - like culture, religion, patriarchy, abuse - to name a few. It's also about self-discovery, freedom and healing. Author Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah shares the inside stories of over 30 women

As an official Living Legend there could be no better person to celebrate than writer Sindiwe Magona. To close the Artscape Women's Humanity Festival 2023, her lively 80th birthday event featured friends, family, lots of fun and the presentation of a special tribute book Sindiwe's Gift.

At 93, Paarl-born Margaret Newman's brain is as fresh as a daisy. Here she shares her secret and gives a glimpse into a life well-lived despite the challenges that only South Africa could offer.

The Woman Zone Book Club guest author of the month during the Artscape Women's Humanity Festival, was Karen Lazar author of 'W is for Witness'. Following a stroke, Karen is also disabled. She shares thoughts on that and on writing with Beryl Eichenberger...

An installation in the Marble Foyer at Artscape as part of the Women's Humanity Festival, contains uncomfortable statistics. It's called She Had a Name 365 - performance artist Carin Bester explains...

Every year as part of the Artscape Women's Humanity Festival, Fine Music Radio give Woman Zone an hour of airtime to showcase some of the women featured in the Festival. Presented by Theresa Smith and produced by Beryl Eichenberger, this year guests included: Marlene le Roux CEO of Artscape, Fatima Dike playwright, Acting Judge Rehana Parker, Hayley Philander founder of IseeU mentoring program...

Knit & Natter is a Woman Zone 'Everywoman' project. And on Sunday August 6th, as part of the Artscape Women's Humanity Festival it sure attracted a lot of women...listen in here!

The first black woman in South Africa to have had a play published and performed, there is much to celebrate about Fatima Dike. At 75, she is one of the Artscape Women's Humanity Festival icons, hear her as she shares just some of her story.

In her book, Off-Centre and Out of Focus (Fourthwall Books) Nadia Kamies reflects on what it was like Growing up 'Coloured' in South Africa, primarily through photography. She spoke to Theresa Smith at the Woman Zone Book Club.

Writing Searching for Papa’s Secrets in Hitler’s Berlin  took its toll on author Egonne Roth. It uncovered for her how her father’s experiences shaped her life – but ultimately it also helped her find her own identity. She talks here to Beryl Eichenberger.

Many thousands of women, in South Africa and across the world, have hysterectomies every year. Often they come as a shock, as hers did for Melanie Verwoerd . But aside from the trauma, pain and rage that it caused her, this feisty writer and political analyst used hers to throw a light, not just on her own life, but on understanding the procedure that so many women suffer in silence. Listen here a...

There is so much to be learned from this book. Not just how Louisa Zondo, lawyer and political actvist, coped with the suicide of her second born son, MaRiky, but what it means to reflect back on your life, your loves, your family, work, pain, parenting and healing. It begins with the expedition Louisa undertook to Mount Everest Base Camp soon after Riky died - it ends in hope, and her resolve to...

The Forgiveness Project was founded in 2004 by journalist Marina Cantacuzino. Nearly twenty years later she has synthesized many of the stories she has heard, and learnings that have come with them, into a book called simply Forgiveness - An Exploration (Simon and Shuster, distributed in South Africa by Jonathan Ball). On a visit to The Women's Library she shared the background.