Jezile, the protagonist of Lauretta Ngcobo's novel And They Didn't Die, represents how rural black women's sense of motherhood charges their political mobilization. And They Didn't Die follows a community of women who care for their children, their land, and their cattle, through periods of drought, famine, while their husbands labour in distant mines and cities. During this time in South African history, known as the Apartheid Era, the women begin to see that in order to improve life, they need to begin taking initiative by making choices, uniting their strength and helping each other. As this novel brings us through times of "struggle" and unbearable conditions from Jezile's early married life of the 50's into the descendents lives of the 80's, Jezile is representative of rural (Zulu) black women's experience just as a typical woman with typical problems amongst other black women at the time, while simultaneously...