Songbirds by Christy Lefteri

Loading player...
'Will break your heart and open your eyes' Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz

'I've never read anything quite like Songbirds - a beautifully crafted novel that sits at the intersection of race and class.' Jodi Picoult, bestselling author of Small Great Things

She walks unseen through our world.
Cares for our children, cleans our homes.
She has a story to tell.
Will you listen?

Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra's daughter; at night she mothers her own little girl by the light of a phone.

Nisha's lover, Yiannis, is a poacher, hunting the tiny songbirds on their way to Africa each winter. His dreams of a new life, and of marrying Nisha, are shattered when she vanishes.

No one cares about the disappearance of a domestic worker, except Petra and Yiannis. As they set out to search for her, they realise how little they know about Nisha. What they uncover will change them all.
1 Nov 2021 English South Africa Books · Arts

Other recent episodes

A Poor Season for Whales Book by Michiel Heyns

Margaret Crowley, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly fifty-six years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. It was therefore hardly to be foreseen that in her…
29 Oct 2021 29 min

Girl A by Abigail Dean

THE BOOK THAT WILL DEFINE A DECADE RIGHTS SOLD IN 27 TERRITORIES SOON TO BE A TV SHOW DIRECTED BY JOHAN RENCK (Chernobyl) ‘An astonishing achievement.’ JESSIE BURTON ‘Gripping, beautifully written perfection.’ SOPHIE HANNAH ‘A masterpiece.’ LOUISE O’NEILL ‘Fantastic.’ PAULA HAWKINS ‘Girl A,’ she said. ‘The girl who escaped. If…
29 Oct 2021 1 hour

Why We Kneel How We Rise by Michael Holding

Through the prism of sport and conversations with its legends, including Usain Bolt, Adam Goodes, Thierry Henry, Michael Johnson, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Makhaya Ntini, Naomi Osaka and Hope Powell, Michael Holding explains how racism dehumanises people; how it works to achieve that end; how it has been ignored by history and…
29 Oct 2021 55 min

Give Us More Guns: How South Africa’s Gangs were Armed by Mark Shaw

Investigative journalist Mandy Weiner is in conversation with the author of Give Us More Guns, Mark Shaw. It was one of the most brutal criminal acts of the post-apartheid era, and its consequences devastating. Thousands of people, including women and children, died between 2011 and 2019 as a result of…
29 Oct 2021 53 min

When Secrets Become Stories edited by Sue Nyathi

She was asking for it. She should have known better. Bekezela (persevere), she was told. It’s because I love you, he said. It’s not that bad, she told herself. In sharing their experiences from girlhood to the boardroom, from Cape Town’s suburbs to the hills of KwaZulu-Natal, women from different…
29 Oct 2021 1 hr 02 min