Lauretta Ngcobo has passed away. May she rest in perfect peace.

Novelist, essayist, feminist, pan-African, freedom fighter. Lauretta Ngcobo was magnificent.

She was born and educated in South Africa; she lived in exile for over 20 years and returned to her homeland in 1994.

She visited my mother and I in Harare many many moons ago. She loved to laughed!

And this from my mother Ama Ata Aidoo:

“Dear Lauretta, there was always you and then there were your books. And we are very grateful for the opportunity to have encountered both. You, for your no-nonsense clarity about everything and everybody including some of our sacred cattle. For your laughter, your feistiness and gumption. Lauretta, for giving us among others And They Didn’t Die, this wonderful acknowledgment of us African women, and in your remarkable and singular Ngcobo language, we will always be grateful. And whenever the opportunity presents itself or when we need to seize it, we shall celebrate you as if you never died”

She wrote two novels, Cross of Gold and And They Didn’t Die.

(Read Lauretta Ngcobo.)

Lauretta Ngcobo, damrifa due.  Nyame nfa wo nsie.

We will miss you.