Mother to Mother Summary

A response to the real-life death of Amy Biehl, Sindiwe Magona's Mother to Mother is an epistolary historical fiction novel written from the point of view of the mother of the boy who killed Amy Biehl (in real life, this was Magona's own neighbor in Capetown). The recipient of the letter is Amy Biehl's mother, which explains the title: The novel is the explanation of why such violence existed in South Africa such that Amy Biehl could be murdered, written from one mother to another. Mandisa, the mother of the murderer, explains that she feels that the recipient deserves an explanation for the death of her daughter, in the hopes that it might lessen the other mother's suffering if just a little. To do so, she must describe the reality of the South African situation. Apartheid has left black South Africans in such a terrible place of war and poverty that murder like the one committed by her son has become common.