The Shadow of Elsewhere: A Journey Home is a tender yet unsparing account of two women, their lives interwoven by one woman’s yearning for Africa and the other’s attempt to escape it.
Thandiwe Sebata was born in Zimbabwe and died alone in an Oxfordshire hospital. Broken by her country, she jumps the border into South Africa and becomes stateless, stripped of identity and hounded by authorities. An unlikely bond forms between her and Angie Butler who is visiting her mother country. Angie’s gesture of goodwill turns Thandiwe’s life into a horrific ordeal of displacement in England, history repeating itself. The Shadow of Elsewhere tells of an impossible fight for justice. It uncovers what it is to be caught between borders, with little chance to hide in no man’s land. And yet, from the dark shadows, light and love outpace the loss in the quest to find home. With all its agonies, Africa calls the two women back, and bewitched, they return, if by no other means, as phantoms, as ghosts.
This story needs to be told, not because it is comfortable, but because it is true. Too many women have suffered in silence, carrying stories the world never hears. Thandiwe’s voice may now be silent, but her words still speak. We owe it to her, and to countless women whose stories remain untold, not to allow fear or shame to bury the truth. Her telling is an act of remembrance, it is an act of courage. Let her story be told.–Zulu Nkululeko
We have to do everything we can to amplify Thandiwe’s voice. We owe it to her to break the silence.–Thenjiwe Kona
Publication date: November 2026
ISBN: 978-1-0671781-7-8
About the author
ANGIE BUTLER was born and raised in Johannesburg, where she worked in film and theatre before moving to London in her mid-twenties. She attained a degree in Sculpture at the City & Guilds of London Art School. She is the author of several books on polar history, including Ice Tracks – Today’s Heroic Age of Polar Adventure, The Quest for Frank Wild, which was turned into a BBC documentary, and co-author of Shackleton’s Critic. Her passion for Antarctica led her to co-founding the expedition travel company Ice Tracks Expeditions and she spent seventeen years travelling to the Arctic and Antarctica. She married the late Royal Academician sculptor James Butler and they have five daughters between them. She lives in England, returning to South Africa several times a year. When she is not writing, she is in her studio in East Sussex. The Shadow of Elsewhere is based on a true story.
