Everybody’s life has a love story somewhere. But when that passion crosses a fiercely-held boundary like skin color, the stakes don’t get much higher. An Immoral Proposal: Forbidden Love Under Apartheid (Shulemite Publishing) opens the door to a compelling drama in South Africa when racial laws were harsh and inescapable.
Author Jennifer Graham spent her childhood in a hostile land where she was legally classified as a “Coloured” – officially defined by the apartheid government as “a person who fails to pass for white.” Labeled Non-Black and Non-White, struggling to find a place to belong, she carves out her version of an ordered world. Her quest is exacerbated by the love of a man who dared to make an “immoral proposal.”
From a lower socioeconomic background, she left school at sixteen to work as a clerk in a factory. He’s from an affluent background, with a private school education, university degree, membership in exclusive social clubs, a home in the leafy suburbs. As they fall in love, they’re courting danger. You see, she’s Brown and he’s White. Big problem. This is South Africa in 1974, the height of apartheid.
“I started this book as a novel,” Graham says. “It seemed safer that way because it was too painful to face head-on. Progress was slow and the novel rang hollow, until a friend and fellow-writer suggested I write it as a memoir. I knew then however much I dreaded the thought, it was the only way forward, and the only way to peel back the layers of pretence.” The book documents her own journey to self-acceptance, and a love that would not be denied.
Jennifer B. Graham is a self-proclaimed global nomad who began life in South Africa, left when she was 19 and hasn’t looked back since. She’s also lived in England, Canada, USA and New Zealand. After earning her degree in communication/print journalism from the University of Mobile, Alabama, in 2001, she wrote freelance feature articles on topics such as food, health, travel and profiles for publications including Destinations, Connections, The Press, The Citizen, The Fairhope Courier as well as Triond.com. An Immoral Proposal is her first book. She lives with her husband near Toronto, Canada. Her five grandchildren split between New York and Regina, Saskatchewan keep her wandering.
An Immoral Proposal: Forbidden Love Under Apartheid
Shulemite Publishing
Available Online at http://amzn.to/1ebuzdT in print and
http://amzn.to/19XCfAE Kindle edition
$15.26
ISBN-13: 978-1493613816
Thank you Geno, for promoting my book on your site.
My Pleasure!