Yewande Omotoso

Yewande Omotoso’s ‘The Woman Next Door’

Yewande Omotoso on apartheid, architecture and her novel, “The Woman Next Door.”

Arts

Yewande Omotoso

Victor Dlamini

Yewande Omotoso’s novel, “The Woman Next Door,” explores racial tension in post-apartheid South Africa.

It’s about a pair of elderly women — one black and one white — who live in a well-to-do suburban enclave of Cape Town. They are next-door neighbors, and they despise each other.

Omotoso talks to Kurt Andersen about the book, her other career as an architect, and her experience moving to apartheid South Africa as a 12-year-old.

(Originally aired April 13, 2017)