For Want of a Totem

<p>Zonipha is a rural girl newly inaugurated into the city as a domestic worker. Ambitious but righteous she seeks to improve herself. Life disagrees and Zonipha finds herself ensnared by an abusive man her employer. Unable to escape she falls pregnant with a child who can never know his father and following her unhappy decision will never know his mother.</p><p>Fate intervenes at a tuckshop when Eugenia who has longed for child discovers the abandoned baby. In doing so she pioneers a movement that seems to defy culture as she tries to encourage the idea of adoption.</p><p><em>For Want of a Totem </em>explores the meaning of family and what it means to be a parent. If a child is abandoned who must raise her. This short but moving novel raised important questions about culture and its adaptability as it responds to contemporary and sometimes contentious issues.</p>