The Book- MADE IN SOUTH AFRICA: A BLACK WOMAN’S STORIES OF RAGE, RESISTANCE AND PROGRESS

Launching on 15 October 2020

Made in South Africa-  A Black Woman’s Stories of Rage, Resistance and Progress

Like many South Africans her age Lwando Xaso came of age alongside a “new” South Africa which like her has crawled, walked, fell and which now bravely attempts to rise again. From Mandela to Zuma, she captures the highs and lows of being a black woman forging a path in a young constitutional democracy.

In Made in South Africa – A Black Woman’s Stories of Rage, Resistance and Progress, Xaso examines with a sharp, searching vision some of the events that have shaped her experience of South Africa with incredible potential but weighed down by persisting racism, cultural appropriation, sexism and corruption, all legacies of a complicated history.

As a young corporate lawyer intent on making partner at a big firm, her direction in life was changed by a significant personal experience of the oppressive capacity of a democratic government when it unjustly fired close family friend and mentor, Adv Vusi Pikoli, as the country’s National Director of Public Prosecutions.

She found herself on his legal team and the turmoil the case created inside her led her to become a constitutional lawyer and to pick up her pen and produce the stories that make up this book.  Her heart fills with pride when the country moves forward and weeps when it stumbles, but she always retains faith in what the Constitution can do.  

Xaso’s outlook is also shaped by her experience of clerking at the Constitutional Court for Justice Edwin Cameron which deepened her respect and admiration of the South African Constitution and what it really means for a resilient people to continually strive to live up to its moral and legal standards. Despite the number of times that South Africa has stumbled, Xaso’s forward looking resolve expresses an abiding faith in the people of South Africa to achieve the impossible.