222 mm x 146 mm, 324 pages RRP: R160, ISBN 978-1-4152-0053-7 Publication date: 27 May 2008, Category: Autobiography Description A chronicle of survival, this is the colourful memoirs of award-winning author Rayda Jacobs. Masquerade starts in Diep River, Cape Town,1947, with a little girl whose life is mostly miserable. After her divorce, Rayda’s mother moves back in with her strict parents, who take a dim view of little girls who do not cover their heads. At sixteen, the young Rayda leaves school and enrols at the National Business Institute, with an illicit ‘white card’. This opens doors – but ultimately the subterfuge catches up to her. At twenty-one, she receives a call from the CID at her place of work, a white lawyers’ firm. Police pressure eventually forces her and her younger sister to leave for Canada. Life gets more complicated with two failed marriages; but Rayda gains a son and daughter. She returns at last to Cape Town after twenty-seven years. Here she starts writing full-time and making documentary films, culminating in her directing and acting the lead role in Confessions of a Gambler, based on the novel which won her the Sunday Times Award. Rayda triumphs when she is invited as special guest to the Dubai Film Festival in 2007. From Masquerade, page 27 That evening, I stood close to my mother in the kitchen. “I don’t want to go to the funeral, Mummy. Can’t I stay home? Please.”     “You have to go. It’s with the class.”     “But it’s a Christian funeral. They will go into a church.”     “It’s all right. Nothing will happen to you.” She put her hand on my head and then continued to wash the dishes.     There was no getting out of it. I had refused to go into the room and view Oupa’s dead body, but now I was forced to walk up to a coffin in a church and look at the frozen features of a dead girl I had called names. To read on From the reviews ...you will LOVE this autobiography ... You won’t want to put this one down! – Jenny Crwys-Williams, Jenny & Co Newsletter, 2 July 2008 E-mail us a comment on this book. (Comments may be edited and used on this website.) To buy this book www.exclusivebooks.com www.kalahari.net home   writers   books   contact   buy   rights all content © Umuzi, Random House Struik this website designed and maintained by Guanaco.co.za