The outsider on the inside. The one who watches and listens.

Growing up Jewish in a small Free State town in the 1950s and ’60s, Jennifer Friedman moves between child and adult, black and white, as Verwoerd’s grand apartheid divides SA.

There are midnight escapes, stolen loot, banned comics, hideous encounters with bras, terrifying policemen, albino messengers and Pa’s beatings. Told with humour and pathos, Friedman’s memoir brings to life a strong sense of place, love, rebellion and betrayal.

 

About the author

Jennifer Friedman was born and raised in the Orange Free State in South Africa. She studied at the University of Cape Town, and her Afrikaans poetry has been published in various academic journals such as Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, Wetenskap en Kuns, Standpunte and Buurman, as well as Rooi Rose. She emigrated with her husband and children in 1992 to Sydney, Australia, where she got her pilot’s licence. After her husband’s death in 1997, Friedman bought her own Grumman Tiger plane and she flies to the small outback towns and stations around Australia, often just for a lunch date and wherever the sun is shining. She now lives on the Central Coast of New South Wales with her partner.

Queen of the Free State – A Memoir is published by NB Publishers