Lilian Ngoyi was a trailblazing figure in South Africa’s liberation struggle – an electrifying orator, a key architect of the 1956 Women’s March, and the first woman elected to the ANC’s National Executive Committee. Yet her life story has never been fully told.

In this authoritative and deeply researched biography, Martha Evans brings MaNgoyi vividly to life. Born in a Pretoria location, widowed young and raising her family in poverty, Ngoyi truly represented the people she spoke for and was the most senior ANC woman leader not married to a high-profile man, forging her own path through her political instinct, charisma and formidable courage.

From the Garment Workers’ Union to the Federation of South African Women and the ANC Women’s League, she rose to national prominence, travelling abroad as a representative of the liberation movement, standing alongside the giants of her era, and organising one of the largest protest marches South Africa had seen. Then came arrest, the Treason Trial, solitary confinement and years of banning – in an attempt to silence her voice and remove her from the public stage.

Drawing on letters, speeches and rich archival sources, this compelling biography restores Ngoyi to her rightful place in history and reveals the complex, deeply human woman behind the icon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Martha Evans is an associate professor at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of Broadcasting the End of Apartheid: Live Television and the Birth of the New South Africa (2014), Speeches that Shaped South Africa: From Malan to Malema (2017) and Lilian Ngoyi: A Life (2026).

'Lilian Ngoyi: A Life' is published by Penguin Random House South Africa