The Long Journey Of Poppie Nongena

Poppie Nongenas arduous journey covers 40 years of South Africas history, sweeping through the riots of Sharpeville, Soweto and Cape Town, on to an indefinite but unpromising future. Poppie Nongenas arduous journey covers 40 years of South Africas history, sweeping through the riots of Sharpeville, Soweto and Cape Town, on to an indefinite but unpromising future.

The plot reflects the brutality and injustice of the Apartheid system, while Elsa Jouberts characterisations reflects the courage and fortitude of people in the face of hardship and difficulty. Poppies contented childhood in the Capes countryside came to an end when she married a migrant worker, and was forced by the authorities to move with him and their young family to the unfamiliar and bewildering city of Cape Town.

No sooner had she established her roots in the new township, when the laws changed and she was informed of her obligation to relocate to the Ciskei, her husbands homeland. He, as a migrant worker, was permitted to remain in the Cape to work. Over a ten-year period, Poppie fought the heinous pass law system, winning limited extensions to the permit that would allow her to live and work in Cape Town and enable her to keep the family together and provide an education for her children.

Her own anger was shared by thousands and inevitably the brooding undercurrent of discontent exploded throughout South Africa. Suddenly, there were no further extensions. Poppie and her children were forcibly removed from their home and resettled in a new township, hundreds of miles away near East London.

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena is an epic tale of the endless adversity and struggle of a humble black woman under Apartheid laws. Poppie emerges from being a simple country girl to becoming an archetypal heroine of South Africa.