About this item

'1879, the year in which I grew up faster than I could shout my name. That year was the one in which we experienced events and encounters that no one, particularly a child, should ever witness. It was also the year my people lost everything - their land and fields - and were reduced to being vagrants and beggars in the land of their birth. I am the daughter of Mqokotshwa Makhoba, one of King Cetshwayo's generals of the iNgobamakhosi regiment, he named me Nombhosho, which means bullet. He said I would come out of any situation fast and unscathed, like a bullet ... ' Nomavenda Mathiane stumbled upon her grandmother's story well over a century after the gruelling events of the Battle of Isandlwana that formed her life. Astounded to hear how her grandmother had survived the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War between the British and Zulu nations as a young girl, Mathiane spent hours with her elder sisters reconstructing the extraordinary life of their grandmother.



Read Next Recommendation

Report incorrect product information.