This Thing Called the Future (26 page)

In addition to traveling to South Africa and spending time with a lot of wonderful people, I read a lot of books. There is one scholar whose work proved tremendously helpful: Adam Ashforth. In fact, the direct wording of the sign “Brothers and Sisters, we are abel to cure any sick,” comes from one of his books on witchcraft in South Africa. I also appreciated Jonny Steinberg and Helen Epstein's work on AIDS in Africa.

Writer friends Lora, Amanda, Christine, Annemarie, Ann, and my mother Becky all read this book at various stages and offered suggestions that helped. My agent Jennifer Carlson not only helped with the writing and marketing of this book but also introduced me to her husband Andrew Zolli of PopTech, who put me in touch with several very helpful people in South Africa.

Many thanks to the whole Cinco Puntos gang, for believing in this work and teaming up with me to create one great book.

Last, but certainly not least, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my husband, Chris Gibson, who was always supportive and never once complained about the huge chunks of time we spent apart while I was tracking down people and information in South Africa.

The Zulu language is structurally very different from English. It is organized around the noun. There are seventeen classes of nouns. Because the initial part of the noun is dropped when constructing a sentence, it can be difficult for English speakers to look up nouns in a Zulu dictionary. This initial part of a noun may also be dropped when a person is addressed directly. For example,
amantombazana
means “little girls,” but if you were addressing a group of little girls directly, you would address them as
Ntombazana
.

Please note that though I have often pluralized words the Zulu way, I have made some exceptions. The plural for
sangoma
should be
izangoma
but I have pluralized it the English way by referring to a group of healers as
sangomas
. I have also done this with the word
tsotsi
.

 

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Copyright © 2011 by J.L. Powers

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations for reviews. For information, write Cinco Puntos Press, 701 Texas, El Paso, TX 79901 or call at (915) 838-1625.

 

Cigarette card,
Zulumädchen mit fonderbarer Haartracht
, used by permission of George Arents Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

 

S.

 

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

 

Powers, J. L. (Jessica Lynn), 1974-

p. cm.

Summary: Fourteen-year-old Khosi's mother wants her to get an education to break out of their South African shantytown, although she herself is wasting away from an untreated illness, while Khosi's grandmother, Gogo, seeks help from a traditional Zulu healer.

eISBN : 978-1-935-95510-8

[1. Sick—Fiction. 2. Healers—Fiction. 3. Medical care—Fiction. 4. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 5. Zulu (African people)—Fiction. 6. Blacks—South Africa—Fiction. 7. South Africa—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.P883443Thi 2011

[Fic]—dc22

2010037399