Titled These are the things that sit with us and edited by Pumla Gobodo Madikizela, Friederike Bubenzer and Marietjie Oelofsen, the collection provides intimate and honest accounts of the narrative that has shaped the lives of everyday South Africans for many years.

Captured through excerpts of extensive interviews that were conducted with residents of Bonteheuwel, Langa and Worcester in the Western Cape, the stories illustrate the effect of the enduring impact of apartheid on individuals and their families. Each of the stories in the book is published with photographs of the storytellers and any other images that they selected for inclusion in the book.

Participants were invited to tell their stories in the language of their choice to interviewers who understood participants’ mother tongue, be it isiXhosa, Afrikaans or English. The stories were then transcribed professionally. Transcripts from interviews conducted in isiXhosa and Afrikaans were translated into English for the analysis of the interview data. For the excerpts in the book, however, the transcripts in isiXhosa and English were translated into Afrikaans in order to publish all the story excerpts in three languages. Translations from the original languages of the participants were done with considerable care, with professional language practitioners taking care not to lose the nuance of each individual’s voice during the translation process.

Funds from the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns were used to enable the translation of stories presented in isiXhosa and English into Afrikaans. The intentional use of different languages enables a wide range of audiences to read the stories and to recognise the human experience of those from different backgrounds and living in different communities. This feature of the book also promotes a greater understanding of the shared history that binds us as South Africans.

This collection of stories opens up a much-needed space for multilingual conversations about our complex South African past and the lingering effects on those who have lived under apartheid, while also giving a public voice to the lives of ordinary people who seek to make sense of the pain they endured under apartheid. The interweaving of the stories in all three of the most commonly spoken languages of the Western Cape captures a deeply felt, collective yearning to rise above the divisive legacy that underpins our traumatic past.