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Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life: A South African Autobiography

by Emma Mashinini

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Emma Mashinini was Secretary of one of South Africa's biggest trade unions when she was arrested without charge and detained for six months, often in solitary confinement. This powerful and compelling autobiography of Mashinini relates the moving story of her life under apartheid from her childhood in Sophiatown, her first marriage and divorce, motherhood, and her

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Overview

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this direct, gripping account, Mashinini, a black South African, details her politicization during the course of her work as a trade activist and her subsequent Kafkaesque imprisonment. Married at 17, Mashinini eventually left her abusive first husband, taking her young daughters. ``I have always resented being dominated,'' she writes. ``I resent being dominated by a man, and I resent being dominated by white people.'' After working for a clothing manufacturer for two decades, active in a union for many of those years, she was asked in 1975 to establish a union for black shopworkers. Just when such unions were making gains, several of their leaders were arrested, including Mashinini. Police seized books and papers from her home and office without a search warrant; no formal charges were required for her imprisonment. Mashinini spent six months in solitary confinement without knowing why, or when she might be released. Under considerable mental strain, she began to find even interrogation preferable to isolation. By discussing her own life, the murder of her son-in-law Aubrey and the violent death of her daughter Penny, an event still ``not in my power to describe,'' Mashinini fulfills her intention of presenting ``a living memory of the evil of the apartheid regime.'' Photos. (May)

Library Journal

This autobiography of a trade union leader is a valuable addition to the growing number of works on or by South African black women. Mashinini recounts both her personal life and struggles and her long-term union activity and leadership. Details of her struggles at work, which led to the formation of the Commercial, Catering, and Allied Workers Union of South Africa, and of her six months of solitary confinement in prison because of her union activities highlight a story of contributions to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. There are also descriptions of the personal hardships and family tragedies of her life, and the reader is surprised by the hope which permeates the entire book. The U.S. edition includes an introduction by Gay Seidman that outlines for the less knowledgeable reader the political and social background to Mashinini's life. Recommended for general readers and young people.-- Maidel Ca son, Univ. of Delaware Lib., Newark