Miriam Tlali is one of a small but significant group of women, including Nomvo Boy, Bessie Head, Gcina Mhlophe, Nomavenda Mathiyane, and Ellen Kuzwayo, who have recorded the experiences and the collective responses of black people to the challenges and cultural traumas of South Africa under apartheid. Unlike many other writers, Tlali has stubbornly remained in South Africa through the last three decades instead of fleeing into exile. She has actively, if quietly, sustained the cause of writing and writers, sometimes working against great odds. She helped to found the magazine Staffrider, the African Writers Association (AWA), and the first black publishing house under apartheid, Skotaville, where she continues as a board member. In pursuing publishing she was following in the footsteps of her family, the Tlalis of Lesotho, who were among the first black people in the region to own a printing press, Tlali and Company, and...