Ougat, Shana Fife
Ougat, Shana Fife
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Ougat
From a hoe into a housewife and then some

Author: Shana Fife

Narrator: Shana Fife

Unabridged: 5 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/15/2024


Synopsis

There’s an entire generation of South African women who ought to read this book.’ – Sara-Jayne King, author of Killing Karoline ‘Ougat is masterfully written – raw, unpretentious, unsettling. Shana Fife captures all the darkness from her body, psyche and life with fearless honesty and transparency.’ – Frazer Barry, award-winning theatre practitioner, writer and musician
By the time Shana Fife is 25 she has two kids from different fathers. To the Coloured people she grew up around, she is a jintoe, a jezebel, jas, a woman with mileage on the pussy. She is alone, she has no job and, as she is constantly reminded by her community, she is pretty much worthless and unloveable. How did she become this woman, the epitome of everything she was conditioned to strive not to be?
Unsettlingly honest and brutally blunt, Ougat is Shana Fife’s story of survival: of surviving the social conditioning of her Cape Flats upbringing, of surviving sexual violence and depression and of ultimately escaping a cycle of abuse.
A powerful, fresh and disarming new voice – Shana’s writing is like nothing you’ve read before.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Iman on November 29, 2022

I finished Ougat in about a day. Shana’s story was very gripping and painfully relatable at times (girl from the Plain over here). I caught myself laughing out loud a few times only to be met with Lyle’s abuse/someone’s dismay for Shana, two sentences later. I’m so glad he’s dead. I’m also so glad S......more

Goodreads review by Lauren on October 29, 2022

An emotional roller-coaster read. One moment I am chuckling the next I want to hit Lyle with a baseball bat. Beautiful description of our colored culture even the toxic traits, makes the book even more relatable. Very gripping read.......more

Goodreads review by Naadira on September 21, 2021

This was a gripping read. I think mostly because of how raw and truthful it is. Many times while reading I actually questioned: Did she actually write these things? How did it make her family feel? Looking back, its really about how everyone made HER feel and how no one really cared because of gener......more

Goodreads review by Anita on August 23, 2021

Hard-hitting. Admirably vulnerable. Keen insight into life in South Africa for women, particularly women in the Western Cape. I admire the author's brutal honesty and candour.......more

Goodreads review by Susanna on July 04, 2024

Shana grew up in Mitchell’s Plain, the gang ridden town in the Cape Flats. She was even one of the more privileged kids, she got to go to a fancy private school and get a good education. But in this school, she is too “coloured”, and at home she is now too fancy or “white”. Always trying to figure o......more