South Africa’s Angela’s Ashes
When Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes was published in 1996, it was hailed as the quintessential depiction of the innocence, vulnerability and resilience of childhood.
Against the background of an impoverished and, in many ways, dysfunctional Irish household, it underscores the extraordinary ability of children to survive both physically and emotionally, and still see the funny side of life.
The 2018 autobiographical novel, All things Bright and Broken by Greyton author, Carol Gibbs, is in the same tradition, painting an evocative picture of growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s in some of the less salubrious suburbs of Cape Town where an alcoholic father was a dominant factor.
In a talk at ANDANTE in Kleinmond earlier this month, Carol said she started writing the book as a means of giving her children and grandchildren an insight into her childhood in a place and time very different from their own, but she soon found that as she mined her memories, the writing became both a dialogue with herself and an opportunity for healing.
Published by Jacana Books and long-listed for the Barry Ronge Prize for Literature, the back-cover blurb refers to the book as “heartbreakingly honest, heart-warmingly written” and Carol herself said she dedicated it to every poor child who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.
“My greatest hope”, she said, “is that it will give more people the courage to write their own story and that it will also encourage teachers to recognise and support vulnerable children in their classes. Someone once said to me, ‘You can’t change the beginning, but you can change the end’, and that’s what this book is all about.”
Copies of All things Bright and Broken are available at Exclusive and Bargain Books stores, as well as online through Amazon.com, or Carol can be contacted at caroljane.cd@gmail.com.