Anthony Egan
THE SPIRITS SPEAK: One Woman’s Mystical Journey into the African Spirit World by Nicky Arden (Henry Holt, R103,95)
BORN in Durban, Nicky Arden emigrated to the United States in the 1960s, disillusioned with apartheid South Africa. On a visit home, she met a sangoma who told her she was being called by the spirits to be a healer.
Later Arden sought out and was accepted as a candidate sangoma. She describes the process of her training in great detail – including her many questions and doubts, and her experience of two contradictory worlds.
When the book gets into the emotional tangles of white guilt, it becomes annoying. When it sticks to the narrative and deals unsentimentally with Arden’s relationship with Joyce, her teacher, it is both fascinating and quite moving.
Perhaps the worst part of the book is all the hype given it on the dust jacket. Its awfully sensational, quite naive and – if the blurb truly suggests that Durban is a “small seaport town” – misleading . The book itself is far, far better and well worth a read, particularly for those of us who are perhaps completely ignorant (and often quite prejudiced) about African traditional healers and their significance for many South Africans today.
SPORTS