Christopher, by Nozuko Siyotula

Christopher follows an extraordinary family – the January-Miyas, with their fabled strong-willed women – sequentially through several generations. All the characters straddle many worlds which come to shape their existence in the world, starting in the present with Vuyo, the narrator, who is a contemporary young woman; her mother Nontsikelelo, a language professor; and Romance, Nontsikelelo’s older sister, a domestic worker. 

Vuyo returns to the area where her family origins lie, pregnant with twins, and mourning the drowning death of her husband, Christopher, a transplanted Scot, by drowning. From Vuyo we move back up the rungs of the family tree to learn of the family’s stronghold on the communities around them established by the patriarch of the family; the challenges of authentic existence in volatile spaces and how each member of the family overcomes their common but varied search to be at peace.

To deal with their loss, the family member’s journey in reconciling with how to exist in an ever-changing country that is only coming to terms with the multiplicity associated with identity; the misrepresented or untold corners of truth of some histories of people in South Africa and the complexity of evolving as a person who is influenced by many truths.