Naomi Mitchison began her novel-writing career in the 1920s, with
historical fictions set in the Ancient world, in Roman and Greek
civilisations, and soon won a high reputation world-wide. But she
began to move toward present and future as well as past: thus
Lobsters on the Agenda (1952) dealt with contemporary Highland
life. When in her sixties she began a lasting friendship with a
young chief designate of the Bakgatla tribe, Linchwe, she went on
to join the tribe, and was adopted as its Mother. She wrote only
one adult novel about Botswana, When We Become Men (1965). This
fine novel deals with the contemporary fight for equality across
southern Africa, and the struggle against apartheid. It ends up
projecting towards a future where fighting would be unnecessary.
Her main character here is Isaac, a young man brought up in
Pretoria, who believes in resistance to a white minority
government, and, like Nelson Mandela, backs bloodless sabotage as a
political weapon. He deeply distrusts the remnants of the tribal
system, and the power of the chiefs. He meets Letlotse, young heir
apparent to the Bakgatla, returning home from an expensive but
sometimes bizarre or just irrelevant education in Britain. He
distrusts old ways too, and is tempted towards national politics,
away from the tribe. There are clashes of beliefs, and conflicting
ideas and loyalties. There is violence here. There are rapes and
murders, and some killings that the Africans regard rather as
executions. Here is a vivid, clear account of a troubled people in
transition, which helps the reader to understand and empathise with
the birth-pangs of a new, post-Imperial, Africa. Isobel Murray is
Emeritus Professor of Modern Scottish Literature at the University
of Aberdeen
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