The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena by Elsa Joubert

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena (First Edition in Original Dust Jacket)

Elsa Joubert's Landmark Apartheid-Era Novel, Translated by the Author from Her Afrikaans Original

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena
• Author: Elsa Joubert
• Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers in association with Hodder and Stoughton, Johannesburg
• Publication Date: 1980
• ISBN-10: 034025047X
• Edition Details: First Edition, published in Johannesburg by Jonathan Ball Publishers in association with Hodder and Stoughton, 1980. English translation by the author of the Afrikaans original.
• Binding: Publisher's hardcover in printed pictorial dust jacket, bright orange with cream lettering.
• Physical Format: Octavo-sized hardcover. Text only, without maps or plates.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Good (G)
• Exterior / Boards: The boards beneath the jacket are not described here. The pictorial jacket is a bright orange-red, with small chips and creasing along the top edge of the front panel. Clear tape patches sit at the upper left and lower left of the front panel and at the spine ends. The glossy spine shows slight wear at the head and foot.
• Interior: The title and copyright pages are clean and bright, with no foxing or marks.
• The Dust Jacket: Present, with the wear noted above: small chips and creasing at the head of the front panel, tape patches at the upper and lower left of the front panel and spine ends, and some rubbing. Graded Good (G). Protected in a Mylar sleeve. The back panel carries an author portrait.

Synopsis & Historical Value

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena, published in Johannesburg in 1980, is the English version of Elsa Joubert's celebrated Afrikaans novel Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena, which Joubert translated herself. It follows a Xhosa woman through the apartheid years, tracing the effect of the pass laws, family breakdown and forced resettlement on one life, and moving through the years of Sharpeville and Soweto.

Joubert drew the novel from the life story of a real woman, recorded in taped interviews. The result is an intimate, unadorned account of how apartheid legislation was lived day to day, written by an Afrikaans author for a wide readership. The book was honoured with the W.A. Hofmeyr Prize, the CNA Literary Award and the Louis Luyt Prize, and was adapted for the stage in 1982 and filmed in 2019 as Poppie Nongena. Its publisher has also noted its selection in 2002 by a panel of academics and writers among the 100 best African novels of the twentieth century.

This is the first edition of the English text, issued in its original pictorial dust jacket. It is a collectible copy of a landmark of South African literature, of interest to collectors of Africana, apartheid-era writing and Afrikaans authors in translation.

Author Profile: Elsa Joubert

Elsa Joubert (1922-2020) was born in Paarl and died in Cape Town. She was an Afrikaans-language writer associated with the Sestigers. She taught at a girls' high school in Cradock and edited the women's pages of Huisgenoot from 1946 to 1948 before becoming a full-time writer.

Her other notable works include Ons wag op die kaptein, which won the Eugène Marais Prize in 1964, Bonga, which won the CNA Prize in 1971, and Die reise van Isobelle, which won the Hofmeyr and Hertzog Prizes. Stellenbosch University awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2001.

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