The women ‘behind the mask’
Many city residents used the lockdown to reinvest in hobbies, discover new talents, and even discover the power of the pen.
Lockdown, Behind the Mask is a collection of short stories by 18 women, including Pietermaritzburg’s own Shanta Maharaj-Singh and Nazeera Vawda.
The diverse writers, some of whom are being published for the first time, had free reign in terms of genre and fact or fiction.
Maharaj-Singh described herself as a 21-century thinker in a 1959-model physical appearance. She is a mother, an education and allied healthcare professional, a social activist, traveller, adventurer, and lifelong learner. She said all that she does is driven by ethics.
“I shall walk this way but once. Any good that I can do, let me do it for now for I might never walk this way again. This is my philosophy and the one word that drives me in all I do is ethics,” said Maharaj-Singh.
Practising attorney and trustee of the Child and Family Welfare Society of Pietermaritzburg, Nazeera Vawda has a passion for uplifting the community. Last year, her first story titled “A story from eThekwini” was published in a women’s anthology Drumbeats from Africa.
She was the editor of Womandla, a 2019 women’s writing collection in which her second story was published. Vawda also won the Women of Wonder award in Dubai, the Influential Woman of the Year award and the Humanitarian of the Year in 2019.
Royalties from the book will be donated to provincial non-governmental programme, the Valley Trust, and all proceeds will go towards their Khulakahle Mntwana Programme, which equips more than 2 000 caregivers in the rural Valley of a Thousand Hills with knowledge and skills to ensure the healthy development of young children.
For those who would like to buy the book, it is available at www.hikmah.co.za for R200.