ABSTRACT
In tracing the author's paths into critical literacy, she has to factor in chance, which is why she began with the significance of the place and time of her birth. She was fortunate that she was white, that her family was progressive, and that she received a good education. The author returned to her studies just a decade before the demise of apartheid and in the era of the literacy wars, when critical literacy was just beginning. Her academic and political timing were fortunate. She met the right people. The first in South Africa to get her doctorate in critical literacy, she was in a position to work with and advise exceptional doctoral researchers, many of them colleagues at universities in South Africa. If any one of these circumstances had been different, she would have been different. She has learnt never to underestimate the conjunction of history, geography, and chance.
