Johannesburg - If there is a common thread running through this year’s book releases in the South African literary space, it has to be that of land restitution.
Bulelwa Mabasa’s memoir, “My Land Obsession” looks at land dispossession from a personal perspective, while Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon’s “The Blinded City” is an historic reflection on Johannesburg's inner-city over a period of 10 years.
Following suit from these offerings is author and editor Lucas Ledwaba with “A Desire to Return to The Ruins”. The book looks at the contentious issues of land reform and restitution in post-apartheid South Africa. It tells the stories of communities engaged in a battle to regain land forcefully taken away from them and their forebears during the apartheid years.
The stories range from successful claims that have turned communities against one another, their long struggle against the government’s bureaucracy and the political wrangling around the land issue.
Ledwaba – whose first book “Broke and Broken” (2016) focused on the exploitation of mine workers – brings to light land reform and land rights. He focuses on issues of social justice, human rights, and rural development.
The 10-chapter book explores how the lack of post-settlement support has been a major contributing factor to the collapse of land claim projects managed by Communal Property Associations (CPA).
Though the reader may find some chapters of the book relatively long, the sensitive issues being discussed allow for the length (where some chapters are about 40 pages long), thus ensuring that the delicate subject of landlessness in South Africa is not diluted.
The ultimate questions that linger throughout “A Desire To Return To The Ruins” are: Will we live to see the day history is reformed and what will it take?
What the reader will appreciate about the book is that Ledwaba makes it a point to bring forth the voices of the marginalised who were forcefully removed from their land by the apartheid state.
Lucas Ledwaba is the founder and editor of Mukurukuru Media. He is a writer, photographer, editor and documentary film-maker. He writes on travel, tourism, culture, heritage, land, mining, social, history and human rights issues.
“A Desire To Return To The Ruins” is published by Blackbird Books and is available at all major bookstores.