In 2018-19, I worked as book doula with Ginn Fourie on her memoir, The Lyndi Tree, helping massage the story into place and arguing the difficult points.
Ginn tells us a giant story in which her own beliefs and experiences, as inheritor of white colonial narratives, stand parallel with those of her Nation and Africa’s native proud, defiant and resilient indigenous warriors; impacting each other in the complex struggle for meaning and liberation.
While I firmly believe The Lyndi Tree would have benefited from another year of professional editing, I am totally respectful of Ginn’s decision to self-publish her memoir for her family and colleagues at the time when she felt she was ready.
Ginn navigates massive internal and external landscapes in times of war, trauma, fractured peace, conciliation and forgiveness in South Africa and Zimbabwe, with a high intellect and an open heart.
Having lost her beloved daughter Lyndi, to a massacre in Cape Town in 1993, Ginn faces Lyn’s ‘s murderers nine years later in court and begins a journey of forgiveness, which will take her around the globe and into the heart of her homeland.
A fascinating tale especially for those with questioning around South Africa’s colonial history, the art and science of hands-on physiotherapy and energy healing, and some interest and intelligent philosophical and theological enquiry into Seventh Day Adventist teachings.
Margot Edwards 