Abstract
Summary The essay looks at four books by contemporary black writers, Down Second Avenue by Ezekiel Mphahlele, Blame Me on History by Bloke Modisane (both autobiographies) Fools and Other Stories by Njabulo Ndebele and To Every Birth Its Blood by Mongane Serote. It compares the sense of the roles and experiences of South African Black women which these writers offer with that of Sol Plaatje in his historical romance, Mhudi, first published in 1930 and written about 1917. Plaatje seems to have believed that the dissolution of traditional and tribal bonds between members of age groups and the distancing of the young from their elders would strengthen the bond between man and wife and allow women to become joint decision makers with their husbands. The four contemporary writers are much more conservative and tend to portray women as passive victims of their men.
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