Rosa’s District 6

Rozena Maart was born in District Six, the former slave quarter of the Cape. Her family along with thousands were forcibly removed in 1973 due to the Groups Areas Act. In 1986, at the age of 24, Rozena was nominated to the "Woman of the Year," award in South Africa for her work in the area of gender-based violence, and for starting with four women the first Black feminist organisation in South Africa: Women Against Repression [W.A.R.]. In October 1992, three weeks after the birth of her daughter, she won, "Best Short Fiction in Canada," for a story, "No Rosa, No District Six". Professor Maart has published several books, journal articles and book chapters, and recently edited, Decoloniality and Decolonial Education: South Africa and the World. Rozena has been recognised with two lifetime achievement awards in philosophy and literature, respectively, from Philosophy Born of Struggle (2016) and the Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to literature and Philosophy by the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Prof Maart is also an International Research Ambassador to the University of Bremen in Germany, and a Mercator Fellow to the first Contradiction Studies programme, also hosted at the same University.

In Cape Town's District 6, despite the brutality of apartheid laws, the lives of people go on. In these five connected stories, the central character is a precocious little girl called Rosa. Through her adventures in the neighbourhood we come to meet and know the District and its many colourful inhabitants - Mamma Zila, Auntie Flowers, Mrs Hood and Uncle Peter - and their confusing, enigmatic lives, and all too human quirks.