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| Simphiwe Dana |
The recently published A Renegade Called Simphiwe is as much
about the supremely talented Simphiwe Dana and its author, leading feminist
scholar, Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola. As she cautions the reader on more than
one occasion, this book is not a biography, so readers who want an expose’ of
Ms Dana may be a little disappointed. In Gqola’s words, this is a book by “a
writer in conversation with the ideas in another artists work”. However, this
book will go down as a cornerstone in South African feminist works on a public
figure. Gqola is not a silent author putting forward sanitized ‘facts’ to an
unimaginative readership. She is part of the story that she tells and she
pushes readers to participate in the narratives that she weaves. At various
points we as readers are asked to explore our own complicity in misogynous,
patriarchal, anti-creative and anti-intellectual discourses.
