We Inherit the Fire

A gorgeously rendered, unflinching portrait of the fractured relationship between a mother and her daughter—set against the tumultuous end of apartheid in South Africa.

There is that photograph, of course. My mother: standing in front of a soldier closer than anyone else would dare . . .

It’s the late 1980s, and teenage Kelelo loves going to her school in the mountains: the fearless teachers, the rich red earth, trading stories with her friends under the morula trees. But the country is rapidly changing, and Kelelo’s father insists she attend the new school in town, from which Black pupils were barred up until a year ago. On her first day, she is immediately propelled to disorienting celebrity status among the students. The child of revered freedom fighter Kewame “Dolly” Malaka, Kelelo is growing up during a time when the world her mother fought for is seemingly being realized. What her classmates don’t know is that at home, Kelelo wrestles with the painful reality of a haunted, emotionally distant mother who is deeply scarred by a lifelong war with the violence of apartheid.

Meanwhile, Kewame is unravelling. A former teenage political prisoner, now the owner of a beautiful home, the wife of a wealthy business owner, and the mother of four beautiful girls, she struggles to maintain the lie of domestic perfection. With her beloved grandmother, Oumama, nearing the end of her life in the segregated hospital, Kewame finds herself alone and trapped in a relentless loop of memories, her mind and body continually returning to both the brutality of the women’s prison and to the unwavering resilience of her fellow prisoners. As forbidden memories resurface and family secrets are dragged into the open, Kewame seeks answers in her increasingly vivid flashbacks, drifting further and further.

Weaving together Kelelo’s and Kewame’s perspectives with tender, evocative prose and tenacious heart, We Inherit the Fire is a searing exploration of the gulf of experience between mother and daughter, the untold stories of Black South African women and girls, and the double-edged inheritance of each generation charged with carrying the fight forward.