Inheritance

Athambile Masola burst onto the South African poetry scene with her groundbreaking – and now celebrated – debut collection, written in her home language of isiXhosa. Writing from a storied literary tradition, Masola's breezy love poems and historical re-imaginings boldly questioned the meaning of freedom in a  
society that is openly hostile to women, and where apartheid has been replaced by other ominous oppressions. These daring, contemporary and inventive poems are now in English, translated by the poet, and presented here alongside the original text. Inheritance is a window into the lives of Black women in South  
Africa right now – a deft dance between self-care and recrimination, between free love and social safety, and between the shadows of the past and the dim light of a just-as-complicated present.