Is it possible in the new dispensation to break the cycle and level the playing field - South Africa's well-documented history of inequality that generations have been subjected to, while it benefited others? Is education in expensive multiracial schools the answer for South Africa's children? Are Affirmative Action positions the answer? Do Gender Equality university courses change patriarchal mindsets? Is South Africa a country still at war with itself, and its citizens unwilling casualties? is it possible to be a casualty of both oppression and freedom? Has Mandela's olive branch yielded juicy fruit and healing experienced by all? Find out from the Sitholes, the middle class African family in the famous rainbow nation. Philani, the husband and father; Siphesihle the wife and mother, and their son, Langa. What are their experiences as individuals, as a family and as the African collective? When human dignity comes under attack, how does Philani, his wife and son respond, in their individual circumstances? And then there's the reality of living life, with all its twists, turns, beauty and surprises, for all that are woman born. Indeed, who doesn't have a belly button? This is a human story about striving to make sense of life, as well as learn and grow from it. The better versions of our individual selves we aspire to. This story will resonate will all, across all borders - geographical as well as superficial and imagined, to reach our common core, the human heart, which has no boundaries. Human frailty. Life lessons - when we cheapen life and life in turn cheapens us. Then love supreme. The redemptive power of love, for individuals, for a people, for South Africa, for humanity. One reader has described this novel as, "an epic." Grab yourself a copy and emerge wonderfully enriched on the other side of the last page.
About the Author: Lynette Hlongwane is an author. She has published a collection of short stories, "Will You Marry Me My T Girl?: And Other Stories"; a memoir, "White Goat for the White House: Saved by Synchronicity"; a poetry book, "Upon These Ashes: Poems and Reflections"; and now her first novel, "Births and Belly Buttons". Lynette's collection of short stories has been assigned for a university course in North America. Some of Lynette's poems appear in anthologies published in France, Austria and South Africa. She has also co-authored high school text books, prescribed for all high schools in South Africa. Lynette holds a Doctorate in Education from Columbia University. She is an educationist and researcher. She has worked as Gender Advisor for the United Nations office in South Africa, and has taught at several high schools and universities - both in South Africa and the United States.