Deepest Springs

About the Book

The story centres around Dikeledi, a young girl in the “independent” homeland of Transkei, one of the “Bantustans” of the former apartheid era in South Africa. The Sotho tribe is in the minority in this area and culture still plays a very big role in the villages. Education is not a priority for most of the people there, so when Dikeledi meets and falls in love with a youth in high school, she is confused by his ambitions to study further and go to university. They marry despite the fact that her husband’s mother hates her, mainly due to the fact that Dikeledi is not traditionally considered beautiful, comes from a poor home and her family is not known in the village, neither is she a relative. Apartheid laws ensure that, even when Dikeledi’s husband wants to take her with him to Johannesburg, without valid documents, it is near impossible for her to live with him, and she has to endure her mother-in-law’s abuse.

About the Author

Nondumiso Makhanya Mutambala Duman began writing at the age of nine. When she was fifteen her mother entered her in a Maskew Miller Writing Competition in South Africa in 1980. She qualified in the top ten. She went on to do a Bachelor of Science degree which left very little time for writing and this was shelved until 1996. “Deepest Springs” was begun in that year and was originally called “The Mountain Song.” “Deepest Springs” is her first full length novel.