Summary
In the preface, author Sidiwe Magona describes Amy Biehl's death to give the reader important background information about the event off of which the novel is based. As a resident of Guguletu, Magona was down the block when her neighbor's son participated in the killing of Amy Biehl. She is positioned in a prime location to tell the story, as she has empathy both for the murdered and the murderer. As she adopts this story as her own, she introduces more and more fictional elements that make it a novel, but these are meant to give the reader as full a picture of what occurred as possible. In the Author's Preface, Magona has not yet taken on the voice of the main character, Mandisa.
Magona opens the novel: "Fulbright scholar Amy Elizabeth Biehl was set upon and killed by a mob of black youth in Guguletu, South Africa, in August 1993" (4). She gives all the facts of Amy's death, reminiscent of a news clipping or obituary. She opens her novel by removing emotion from the story, and this clinical statement of facts allows the reader to gain bearings in preparation for the complicated examination of emotion, particularly those of grief and shame, that is to come. Amy had been in South Africa to help prepare black people for a democratic election. She was no lost tourist, nor was she a white South African who had spent her life benefitting off of the oppression of South African black people. "She held a huge compassion," Magona writes, "understanding the deprivations they had suffered" (4).
Magona asks what can be learned from the other side of Amy Biehl's death. She points out that it is typical in situations like this one for outsiders to learn a lot about the victim. She questions whether a narrative focused solely on the victim would paint the whole picture. She introduces another world, one full of people who are "the reverse of such benevolent and nurturing entities" (4). She wants us to know the world of Amy's killers. Killers, she writes, "young as she was young, whose environment failed to nurture them in the higher ideals of humanity and who, instead, became lost creatures of malice and destruction" (4).
Magona touches on her intentions in writing this novel. She mentions Mxolisi and notes that although there were many murderers that fateful day, she will only be writing about one. Through a glimpse of his mother's memories, she hopes to demonstrate "the human callousness of the kind that made the murder of Amy Biehl possible" (4). A human callousness she does not immediately attribute to the murderer.
To discuss his environment is to enter the legacy of apartheid. Magona describes apartheid as "a system repressive and brutal, that bred senseless inter- and intra-racial violence...a system that promoted a twisted sense of right and wrong" (4). Apartheid was instituted in South Africa in 1948 by the National Party government. It comes from the Afrikaans word meaning "apartness." The initiative was one of segregation and called for the separate development of racial groups in the country. While the government never admitted that apartheid was about subjugation, it was implemented in a way that caused gross inequality among racial groups, and many non-whites were kept poor simply because they were not white. Integration in any form was severely frowned upon and would cast suspicion upon whoever it was that interacted with people from a racial group different than their own. Although apartheid officially ended in 1994, around the time that Amy Biehl is in the country, its legacy continues today.
Magona finishes the prologue by introducing Mandisa: "the killer's mother, bewildered and grief-stricken, dredges her memory and examines the life her son has lived" (4). Magona tells the reader that through Mandisa's grief, they might get a picture of Mxolisi's world. A central parallel is built between Mandisa and Amy's mother, and we are prepared to see their grief compared often throughout the novel. We see that the truth can offer the first steps to healing, as Mandisa "hopes that an understanding of [Mxolisi's world] and her own grief might ease the other mother's pain... if only a little" (4). Magona writes the novel so that the reader might stand in Amy's mother's shoes, and hear Mandisa's story through the letters she addresses this other mother. The preface ensures that we empathize with Amy's mother first, as we have heard most recently of the terrible crime committed against her daughter. We can only imagine her pain. It is Mandisa, and through her, Mxolisi, that, through the novel, we must learn to empathize with.
Analysis
Magona writes that upon Amy Biehl's death, "the outpouring of grief, outrage, and support for the Biehl family was unprecedented in the history of the country" (4). This is noteworthy on two levels. On a basic, more surface level, Magona is conveying Amy's relative innocence and goodness as a person, so much so that many who had nothing to do with her or her murder might speak up against it. On a deeper level, Magona is hinting at a fact that is made clear later on. This violence is unprecedented not because it is uncommon—violence is pervasive in the life of South African blacks. This violence is unprecedented because it is committed against a white woman in a black rural area. Amy's life, as a white woman, and especially as one who was in South Africa working for social justice, had a large societal value and impact. Her death was not just any death.
And Amy was not just any white woman to happen upon Guguletu. As Magona writes, Amy was involved in politics, helping black people prepare "for the country's first truly democratic elections" (4). This work would improve the quality of life for all black South Africans, as elected representatives might help to change the oppressive regime set in place by the powerful, rich white minority in South Africa. Not only does this make her death ironic, as Magona points out, but it makes her death deeply symbolic as well. Youth in Guguletu survived for so long on scarce resources and no schooling, and were filled with a politicized rage against their oppressors. By the time of Amy's death, there was no differentiating between "good" and "bad" white people—all white people were seen as bad, especially the ones who happen to find themselves in Guguletu.
The idea of there being two opposing worlds is one that Magona will flesh out in this novel. She is interested in examining what kind of world can create people who are Amy's opposites, “the reverse of such benevolent and nurturing entities" (4). How might it be that upon birth it is decided that one might become a good, generous person, and others might become murderers? The language she uses gives us a hint at the answer. "Benevolent" and "nurturing" are adjectives that imply a certain level of separation from the subjects of one's care. Only people richer in resources and power, such as a king or a god, can act benevolently toward another. Those who nurture are those who have access to information and resources that they share with others who don't have them, such as mothers or nurses.
When discussing the human callousness that made Amy's murder possible, Magona once again uses very specific language that clues us in to the novel's larger meaning. Magona is not calling the murder itself the human callousness, although it was certainly an example of that. Instead, she tells us that there is even more callousness in the history of this boy, and lets us know that in many ways he might be a victim as well. What callousness created this murder? And did it begin at the murderer's birth, or way before that? In Mother to Mother, Magona makes it clear that Amy Biehl's death was set into motion long before her arrival in South Africa.
