Corridors of Death: The Struggle to Exist in Historically White Institutions – the new book by Malaika wa Azania, the bestselling author of Memoirs of a Born Free: Reflections on the Rainbow Nation – is out now from BlackBird Books!

The post-apartheid dispensation that has seen Black people continue to be hurled at the margins of existence has crystallised mental pathologies that have their roots in our violent and amoral past.

Millions of Black people in South Africa are battling with a range of mental health challenges resulting from a complex interplay between biological, psychological, social and environmental factors.

In Corridors of Death, the lived experiences of Black students in historically White universities is explored, exposing how structural violence, racism and a culture of alienation are pushing them to the edge of depression and increasingly, suicide.

The book contends that urgent structural and institutional interventions need to be made, the centre of which must be transformation that reflects the demographic and socio-political construct of the South African society.

Unless and until this happens, Black students will increasingly reach an unendurable level of invisible agony and die in universities.

About the author

Malaika wa Azania is a pan Africanist feminist and award-winning essayist. She has travelled the world extensively, representing South African youth in various dialogues through the African Union, the United Nations and other institutions. She has given lectures locally and internationally, on the question of race relations in the democratic dispensation, about which she is passionate. A graduate of Rhodes University, where she graduated with a postgraduate degree in Geography cum laude, Malaika is an activist deeply committed to institutional transformation. She is a television presenter, a columnist in the Soweton and the Herald newspapers, and a Senior Specialist in the City of Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality.

Corridors of Death is available on BlackBird Books’s website and selected stores.

‘Masterfully crafted! It is clear that Malaika wa Azania masters the art of writing good books.’ – Panyaza Lesufi, MEC of Education and Youth Empowerment in Gauteng Province

‘Peeping through the window of Malaika’s thoughts through this book helps us to see what monstrosity of transformational challenges we are faced with in changing our universities what they truly should be. Urgent. Remarkable. Impeccable. Lucid. Timely.’ –  Buti Manamela, Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Training, Science and Technology

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags BlackBird Books Corridors of Death Malaika wa Azania New books New releases