Flashes in Her Soul: The Life of Jabu Ndlovu

Flashes in her Soul is the story of Jabu Ndlovu, a shop steward of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and a community leader in Imbali near Pietermaritzburg. Jabu, her husband and her oldest daughter were killed in a brutal attack on their home in May 1989. This story shows the courage and compassion with which Jabu fought against all forms of exploitation. Her story represents the experiences of thousands of women who struggled and suffered as a result of the war in KwaZulu-Natal in the 1980s and 1990s. Jabu’s story reminds us of the devastation that violence brings to families, communities and organisations. The politics and dynamics behind the violence today are not the same as in the 1980s and early 1990s, but the need remains for strong and moral leaders like Jabu to speak out and organise against the violence and the moral corruption that lies behind it. First published in 1991, this is the second book in the Hidden Voices Series. The Hidden Voices Series emerged out of an interest in left intellectual contributions towards discussions on race, class, ethnicity and nationalism in South Africa. Before and during the apartheid years, many universities were closed to existing local ideas and debates, and critical intellectual debates, ideas, texts, poetry and songs often originated outside academia during the period of the struggle for liberation. The Hidden Voices Series seeks to publish key texts, books, documents and other materials that were never published under apartheid, or seminal books that have gone out of print. We hope that these recovered, lost or forgotten voices will help reinvigorate the humanities and social sciences, and contribute to the decolonisation of knowledge production in South Africa and indeed throughout Africa.