
Mother to Mother
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Janina Edwards
-
By:
-
Sindiwe Magona
About this listen
Sindiwe Magona's novel Mother to Mother explores the South African legacy of apartheid through the lens of a woman who remembers a life marked by oppression and injustice. Magona decided to write this novel when she discovered that Fulbright Scholar Amy Biehl, who had been killed while working to organize the nation's first ever democratic elections in 1993, died just a few yards away from her own permanent residence in Guguletu, Capetown. She then learned that one of the boys held responsible for the killing was in fact her neighbor's son.
Magona began to imagine how easily it might have been her own son caught up in the wave of violence that day. The book is based on this real-life incident, and takes the form of an epistle to Amy Biehl's mother. The murderer's mother, Mandisi, writes about her life, the life of her child, and the colonized society that not only allowed but perpetuated violence against women and impoverished black South Africans under the reign of apartheid. The result is not an apology for the murder but a beautifully written exploration of the society that bred such violence.
©2018 Sindiwe Magona (P)2018 Beacon PressListeners also enjoyed...
-
Like Water for Chocolate
- By: Laura Esquivel
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tita is the youngest daughter of Mama Elena, the tyrannical owner of the De la Garza ranch. As the youngest, she is expected to remain single and stay at home to care for her mother. So when Tita falls in love, Mama Elena arranges for Tita's older sister to marry Tita's young man.
-
-
Incredible book. Disappointing narration
- By Elizabeth on 01-03-14
By: Laura Esquivel
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
Salvage the Bones
- A Novel
- By: Jesmyn Ward
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A hurricane is building, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's 14 and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.
-
-
Good but I wish I hadn't read it.
- By Jeanie on 01-26-21
By: Jesmyn Ward
-
Ceremony
- By: Leslie Marmon Silko
- Narrated by: Pete Bradbury
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leslie Marmon Silko's sublime Ceremony is almost universally considered one of the finest novels ever written by an American Indian. It is the poetic, dreamlike tale of Tayo, a mixed-blood Laguna Pueblo and veteran of World War II. Tormented by shell shock and haunted by memories of his cousin who died in the war, Tayo struggles on his impoverished reservation. After turning to alcohol to ease his pain, he strives for a better understanding of who he is.
-
-
Worth a re-read
- By Mariah on 02-02-09
-
Long Walk to Freedom
- The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
- By: Nelson Mandela
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 27 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world.
-
-
Surprisingly honest autobiography.
- By History on 11-17-11
By: Nelson Mandela
-
Binti
- By: Nnedi Okorafor
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares.
-
-
Messages
- By khaalidah on 10-07-15
By: Nnedi Okorafor
-
Like Water for Chocolate
- By: Laura Esquivel
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tita is the youngest daughter of Mama Elena, the tyrannical owner of the De la Garza ranch. As the youngest, she is expected to remain single and stay at home to care for her mother. So when Tita falls in love, Mama Elena arranges for Tita's older sister to marry Tita's young man.
-
-
Incredible book. Disappointing narration
- By Elizabeth on 01-03-14
By: Laura Esquivel
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
Salvage the Bones
- A Novel
- By: Jesmyn Ward
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A hurricane is building, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's 14 and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.
-
-
Good but I wish I hadn't read it.
- By Jeanie on 01-26-21
By: Jesmyn Ward
-
Ceremony
- By: Leslie Marmon Silko
- Narrated by: Pete Bradbury
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leslie Marmon Silko's sublime Ceremony is almost universally considered one of the finest novels ever written by an American Indian. It is the poetic, dreamlike tale of Tayo, a mixed-blood Laguna Pueblo and veteran of World War II. Tormented by shell shock and haunted by memories of his cousin who died in the war, Tayo struggles on his impoverished reservation. After turning to alcohol to ease his pain, he strives for a better understanding of who he is.
-
-
Worth a re-read
- By Mariah on 02-02-09
-
Long Walk to Freedom
- The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
- By: Nelson Mandela
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 27 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world.
-
-
Surprisingly honest autobiography.
- By History on 11-17-11
By: Nelson Mandela
-
Binti
- By: Nnedi Okorafor
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares.
-
-
Messages
- By khaalidah on 10-07-15
By: Nnedi Okorafor
-
Anil's Ghost
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past.
-
-
unlikely poetry
- By jayne on 04-30-08
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Nervous Conditions
- Nervous Conditions, Book 1
- By: Tsitsi Dangarembga
- Narrated by: Chipo Chung
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic in the African literary canon and voted in the Top Ten Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, this novel brings to the politics of decolonization theory the energy of women’s rights. An extraordinarily well-crafted work, this book is a work of vision. Through its deft negotiation of race, class, gender, and cultural change, it dramatizes the "nervousness" of the "postcolonial" conditions that bedevil us still.
-
-
Thoughts I’ve never had to think before
- By B. Glerum on 09-29-24
-
Train to Pakistan
- By: Khushwant Singh
- Narrated by: Paul Thottam
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mano Majra is a place, Khushwant Singh tells us at the beginning of this novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the "ghost train" arrives, a silent funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refuges, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endures and transcends the ravages of war.
-
-
the scenes of war are unforgettable
- By Kelly on 12-20-19
By: Khushwant Singh
-
Half of a Yellow Sun
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Zainab Jah
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a 13-year-old houseboy working for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who's abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene.
-
-
A Little Background Adjustment
- By Perkbrooke on 03-13-18
-
Homegoing
- A Novel
- By: Yaa Gyasi
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and will live in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising children who will be sent abroad to be educated before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the empire. Esi, imprisoned beneath Effia in the castle's women's dungeon and then shipped off on a boat bound for America, will be sold into slavery.
-
-
A Novel in Stories
- By Daryl on 06-19-16
By: Yaa Gyasi
-
Sarah's Key
- A Novel
- By: Tatiana de Rosnay
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past.
-
-
Important subject and plot, pedestrian execution
- By Benson on 04-15-10
-
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds
- The Malayan saga
- By: Selina Siak Chin Yoke
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Facing challenges in an increasingly colonial world, Chye Hoon, a rebellious young girl, must learn to embrace her mixed Malayan-Chinese identity as a Nyonya - and her destiny as a cook, rather than following her first dream of attending school like her brother. Amidst the smells of chillies and garlic frying, Chye Hoon begins to appreciate the richness of her traditions, eventually marrying Wong Peng Choon, a Chinese man. Together, they have ten children.
-
-
mercy! wtf is going on???
- By gostephi on 04-16-17
-
The German Wife
- A Novel
- By: Kelly Rimmer
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson, Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1930—When a wave of change sweeps a radical political party to power, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes’s academic husband benefits from the ambitions of its newly elected chancellor. Although Sofie and Jürgen do not share the social views growing popular in Hitler’s Germany, Jürgen’s position with its burgeoning rocket program changes their diminishing fortunes for the better. But as Sofie watches helplessly, her beloved Berlin begins to transform, forcing her to consider what they must sacrifice morally for their young family’s security, and what the price for their neutrality will be.
-
-
Awkward Narrative
- By Terri S. on 07-14-22
By: Kelly Rimmer
-
In the Time of the Butterflies
- By: Julia Alvarez
- Narrated by: Noemi de la Puente, Alma Cuervo, Bianca Carnacho, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is November 25, 1960, and the bodies of three beautiful, convent-educated sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. El Caribe, the official newspaper, reports their deaths as an accident. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of General Raphael Leonidas Trujillo's dictatorship.
-
-
Maybe it's just me but...
- By Sarah PK on 03-05-16
By: Julia Alvarez
-
Three Daughters
- A Novel
- By: Consuelo Saah Baehr
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in rural Palestine, just before the dawn of the 20th century, Miriam adores her father and is certain his love will protect her, but she soon finds that tradition overrides love. Uprooted by war, Miriam enters a world where the old constraints slip away with thrilling and disastrous results. Miriam's rebellious daughter, Nadia, is thrilled with the opportunity for a modern life that her elite education provides. But when she falls in love with an outsider, the clan reins her back with a shocking finality.
-
-
Thrilling
- By valerie on 12-18-14
-
A Fine Balance
- By: Rohinton Mistry
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers—a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village—will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
-
-
Read this book if your heart is made of steal
- By Amazon Shopper on 03-23-08
By: Rohinton Mistry
-
That’s That
- By: Colin Broderick
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colin Broderick was born in 1968 and spent his childhood in Tyrone County in Northern Ireland. It was the beginning of the period of heightened tension and violence known as the Troubles, and Colin’s Catholic family lived in the heart of rebel country. The community was filled with Provisional IRA members, whose lives depended on the silence and complicity of their neighbors. But even when Colin does ask his parents about these events, he never receives a clear explanation. Desperate to protect her children, Colin’s mother tries to prevent exposure to or knowledge of the harm that surrounds them.
-
-
Well Written and Very Personal Memoir
- By Lulu on 01-08-16
By: Colin Broderick
Critic reviews
"Unforgettable." (Hazel Rochman, Chicago Tribune)
"Mother to Mother is a stunning novel; Magona has succeeded in her grand ambition to write a story of healing and confrontation. She has written a graceful, terrible story; it is an eloquent indictment of Apartheid and a passionate lament over the loss of Amy Biehl's life." (Angela Salas, The Boston Book Review)
"As a lament for the terrible legacy of apartheid, the novel is surely a tour de force. As a story of individuals attempting to deal with choices made and perhaps regretted, it is a moving work of fiction." (Lee Milazzo, Dallas Morning News)
What listeners say about Mother to Mother
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- LATOYA LEWIS
- 05-23-24
nothing new, colonization breeds anger and violence
Based in the motherland, this read is about a mother of a murderer who writes about her life, her sons, and the colonizers who continued the violence against women and the poorer Black Africans under apartheid. Some may view this book as an apology letter for her sons murder but it's more like highlighting the society that bred the violence shown throughout apartheid, colonization, and the book. #Book10of2024 #Bookworm #Whatsnext
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!