Books
CUL-DE-SAC, A MEMOIR
BY ELSA JOUBERT
Elsa Joubert is best known for The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena, but she also wrote a lot about her travels through Africa. In Cul-de-Sac she describes a journey of another kind: into proper old age (she is 95).
Elsa moves into Berghof, a retirement facility in central Cape Town, and writes about lunch with friends, travails with hair, her neighbours, her childhood, her health, old rivalries, regrets and joy… basically, her life – then and now. There’s something about the way she writes that is really amazing: it’s flat, accepting and somehow deeply funny. I loved this book – way more than I expected to.
– Suzy Brokensha
