Author(s): Christopher Hope

Fiction

Once it seemed to Kathleen Healey that Africa was empty and all of it belonged to her. An aviator, big-game hunter and knitting devotee, who once boxed three rounds with Ernest Hemingway, she would land her plane wherever and whenever she chose. She was free with her favours too, and her multitude of lovers came from all over the continent. But when Kathleen dies, her only son Alexander returns to Johannesburg to carry out her final wishes. But then he meets Cindy September, a woman of the new South Africa, and Alexander must confront the final part of his mother's legacy - his capacity for love. "My Mother's Lovers" is Christopher Hope's most ambitious novel yet. Bitingly funny, outrageously inventive and peopled with a fantastical cast of characters, it shows how the hunger to be loved and to belong affects us all. First published 2006.