Love and Courage

Love and Courage? is being launched on Wednesday 8th August 2007 at the Woman?s Gaol, Constitution Hill, with guest speakers Ahmed Kathrada and Elinor Sisulu and poetry readings Keorapetse Kgositsile and Makhosazana Xaba and Pregs Govender will be available for interviews.

Pregs Govender is widely admired as someone deeply committed to the development of South Africa as a just and humane democracy, concerned in particular with the rights of women and the poor in our society. As an ANC MP in the first democratic parliament after 1994, she grew to prominence through her work on the Women?s Budget and as head of the Women?s Committee. She was not afraid to stand up to the party and voice her own views on such matters as the arms deal and the government?s handling of the AIDS pandemic. She resigned as an MP and left parliament in 2002. Since then she has continued with her public work through other avenues. She has the ability to open up closed debates, to bring fresh and invigorating perspectives into play, to tell the truth fearlessly in a way that frees both her and her opponents.

?Love and Courage? draws on the story of her life, a life that has often involved insubordination to the powers that be. In many ways her book is a reflection on the nature of power, both personal and political. It offers us a refreshing vision of true power, based on the love and courage within each of us.

?An absorbing and remarkably frank account of an unwavering determination to live with integrity and dignity amidst the multiple complexities of discrimination and turmoil of the struggle years, and the challenges thereafter of being in the seat of power.  It is a brave and telling reflection on our contemporary history and opens the space for others to speak.?
AHMED KATHRADA, ANC leader, ex-Robben Island prisoner.

?Pregs Govender?s Love and Courage is, without any doubt in my mind, one of the best books I have ever read.  In her admirably lucid prose, her creativity, love and courage emerge and merge to connect her and the reader interested in what it means to be alive. 
In the process of taking the reader to where and how she has been, she illustrates with clarity how the personal is unarguably political.  Read this book to understand why I place it in the ranks of Neruda?s Memoirs?
KEORAPETSE KGOSITSILE, National Poet Laureate

?There are very few people who are able to speak of themselves and their lives ? the things both mundane and profound, about who they are, with this degree of humility and love.  The deep analysis and careful thought about how best to speak the hard truths are an important part of Pregs?s offering.  But the most priceless gift to the world is the gift of love, honesty and humility.?
SIPHO MTHATHI, General Secretary: Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)

?A brave and forthright book, at once deeply personal and powerfully political. Govender tells her unique story of resistance to oppression and the abuse of power with an easy intimacy that never lapses into sentimentality and remains loyal to the movement she has committed so much of her life to, to the liberation of the people of South Africa.  She reminds us, as Che Guevara once did, that ?The true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love??
PROFESSOR AMINA MAMA, Chair in Gender Studies, African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town.

?A searingly honest memoir by an insubordinate woman who refuses to be silenced ? an inspiration to insubordinate sisters everywhere.?
ELINOR SISULU, Author of ?Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In Our Lifetime?

?Love and Courage? is being launched during August and Pregs Govender will also be available for interviews as follows

KwaZulu-Natal ? Thursday 16th August 2007 - Exclusive Books Westville
with guest speakers Justice Pius Langa and Sipho Mthathe and a poetry reading by Gcina Mhlope

Western Cape ? Tuesday 21 August 2007 - Centre for the Book with guest speakers
Professors Amina Mama and Njabulo Ndebele and singers Malika Ndlovu, Tina Schauw and Ernistine White

Publication Details

ISBN 978-1-77009-342-3
Trade paperback
R165

For all media enquiries, review copies, or interview requests please contact:
Helen Holyoake
011 462 2302
helco@mweb.co.za

For sales enquiries contact:
Nteseng Thoane
011 628 3222
Nteseng@jacana.co.za

Constitution Hill is a unique mixed-use development in the Inner City of Johannesburg implemented by the JDA, funded by Blue IQ and the new home of the Constitutional Court, the protector of our basic rights and freedoms. Constitution Hill is also the site of Johannesburg?s notorious Old Fort Prison Complex, commonly known as Number Four, where thousands of ordinary people were brutally punished before the dawn of democracy in 1994. Many of South Africa?s leading political activists, including Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, were detained here. 

In addition to the permanent exhibitions, interactive experiences and educational programmes , Constitution Hill offers venues for hire, as well as the Dome, the location for film shoot service, day and night tours, a full calendar of public programmes and exhibitions that bring the site to life and enable the public to connect with the activities of the Constitutional Court.

For Constitution Hill programs, events calendar and exhibitions contact

Alice Moloto
Manager Marketing, Sales and Administration
011 381 3100

Mxolisi Dlamuka
Programs Manager
011 381 3100