South Africa Books

There is no doubt that the Skeleton Coast of Namibia is bleak and inhospitable. There was a time when Mariners would fear this particular stretch of coastline - and with good reason. Those who's ships ran aground here had little chance of surviving the savage shoreline and those who were fortunate enough to come ashore had little chance of rescue. All they would find on the landward side was a bleached desert waste with few examples of the African wildlife they might otherwise expect to encounter.

Today, of course, we have a wider appreciation of such unspoilt areas and the entire region is now a designated and protected National Park where none may enter without a permit.

Such is the tranquillity of this forbidding region that even something as generally accepted as tyre tracks across the hardened sands are regarded as pollution. Such tracks may take over 100 years to disappear altogether.

In this book, the author produces an excellent insight into what appears to be every aspect of the Skeleton Coast. Geology, climate, rivers, flora and fauna, early explorers, shipwrecks, lost aircraft, fortune hunters and much more besides - they are all explained here. It is an excellent book, easy to read and supported by some first rate photography.

Of course, it is the shipwrecks which are my own main interest but I should also like to visit such a bleak and unspoilt place. Were I to do so, however, it would not remain so unspoilt. It is, therefore, one of those places I shall continue to put off visiting. In the meantime, I shall console myself by reading this book again.

NM

I first read this book when I was 15 years old. I am now almost 30 and still remember the impact it had on me. It is a story about apartheid and the effect it had on people of all color. I was so moved by the story that I wrote to the author who, in return, sent me a beautiful letter. Currently out of print, I recommend that everyone try to get a copy of this book.

excelent book all about slovos fights with apartheit. the only white leader of the a.n.c A FIGHTER TO THE END.

In 1987 the South African government was failing and the nation on the brink of a civil war. British born John Vigor emigrated to South Africa at the age of thirteen. By age fifty he had become a syndicated columnist for an anti-apartheid newspaper. Yet he realized when the revolution came people wouldn't care who he was or what he stood for. He and his family were in harm's way. When racist graffiti appeared on their garden wall and discussion turned to the possibility of buying a shotgun, John knew it was time to leave. Abandoning a comfortable life and a country they loved, John and his American wife, June, were forced to give up most of their life savings to the South African government. Risking everything, the Vigors purchased a 31-foot sloop and provisions for a trans-Atlantic voyage to America, where they hoped start over. Hidden on board was a small fortune in gold coins.

Small Boat to Freedom narrates the dramatic story of this voyage across some of the most dangerous seas in the world-past the Cape of Storms, around the Cape of Good Hope, north along the Skeleton Coast, and into the vast South Atlantic. John with his wife and their youngest son braved these dangers along with hurricane winds, rogue waves, failed equipment, and other perils as they made their way towards America. It is chock full of sailing details and the history of famous captains, hidden islands, record breaking voyages, and the legacy of ocean travel. It is a poetic look at nature, being out of reach of land powered only by the wind and sea-and being at its mercy:

"We had been lucky so far. The storm waves had grown with the howling wind as the hours passed, but, as fate would have it, the real monster waves, the widely spaced graybeards with their fiercely plunging crests, had laid down their acres of seething white foam on either side of us.... Now for the first time, we were in the direct line of one, and there was nothing I could do about it. ... What I remember now is not so much the fear-though, heaven knows, I was paralyzed with fear-as the helplessness of it, the feeling of inevitability, of not being able to do anything about it. That was somehow more frightening than the raw fear... just before the wave struck, I closed my eyes, crouched down in the cockpit, and wondered if fish would gobble up the precious gold coins we were trying to smuggle out of South Africa, as they swallow the shiny lures of fishermen..."

Most importantly, however, is the message the author writes for Americans in a time of war and government reaction. John watched in dismay following the attacks of September 11, 2001 as the American government cracked down on civil liberties. Raised in a society divided by apartheid, and witness to the destructive affects of tyranny, John wrote his story of sacrifice and survival as a reminder to us what lengths others will go to live in a free society. He cautioned Americans of relinquishing their hard won civil rights to a federal government, and to the dangers of ignoring the voices of other peoples and cultures, even if they are among our enemies. It is a poignant story of surprising depth, and relative to the American situation in 2004 as we face war against terrorism at home and abroad.

Having recently completed a safari in Southern Africa, I had the chance to evaluate many portable field guides on the fauna of the region. I found Smither's ( a smaller version of the encyclopedic tome that is considered the benchmark work on southern African mammals) to be informative, easy to use, and beautifully illustrated. Helpful for both the naturalist as well as the sportsman, there are comparitive scale drawings that are quite accurate. A must for nature-oriented travelers to the region.

South Africa Magic Land: Text by Elaine Hurford and photos by many South African photographers This beautiful coffee-table sized book is filled with scores of brilliant photographs and excellent, interesting text. Divided into chapters by sections of the maps of South Africa shown in the book, the text describes and defines each area of South Africa, making the reader feel he or she has traveled through this powerful country along with the photographers. This is the perfect souvenir for anyone who has been there and making everyone who peruses this book eager to visit this wondrous country. This is a wonderful travel book.

In 1965 Robert Sobukwe was a prominent black prisoner on South Africa's Robben Island--the famous prison known for holding Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders. A journalist went to interview Sobukwe. Of the encounter she wrote: "As you enter, as you talk to him, you gain much the same impression of power, of leadership, as you do when with South Africa's Prime Minister [Hendrik Verwoerd]. Sobukwe has much the same quiet courtesy, much the same innate charm--and certainly much the same clear, incisive, trained mind. You are left with the overwhelming impression that, if this man is one day released, he will, for good or ill, leave his mark on South African history."

What is remarkable about the description is that it came from a pro-government journalist, explains Benjamin Pogrund in his book, Sobukwe and Apartheid. In fact, the journalist had been allowed to interview Sobukwe in order to produce a positive spin on prison life in South Africa. The government's aim was to counter adverse publicity over deplorable jail conditions, for black and white prisoners, at another prison. A series of shocking articles by Pogrund in the Rand Daily Mail, where he was a reporter, caused a furor in and out of the country. There were angry calls for a judicial inquiry; damage control became necessary.

That a journalist sympathetic to the government was forced to concede that Sobukwe possessed endearing qualities, comes as no surprise after reading Pogrund's fascinating and highly informative account. Men as different Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations--who brought some of Sobukwe's children to America to study and live with him--and Anthony Lewis, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, were strongly impressed after meeting him.

Pogrund writes about a personal friend. Sobukwe was the first leader of the Pan Africanist Congress, an organization staunchly committed to ending white dominance in South Africa. Though the two men first met in 1957, their unique friendship began in earnest the following year when the author, a white South African, joined the Rand Daily Mail. Pogrund was a rookie reporter eager to cover black politics. Fortunately for him, he joined the English-language newspaper in the same year it acquired a new editor who was not afraid to report on black issues and to attack apartheid through sharp political analysis.

Having been a distinguished student and graduate of the country's then leading institution for blacks--the South African Native College at Fort Hare--Sobukwe was one of the very few blacks who served as "language assistants" on the faculty of the well-known University of the Witwatersrand. As he got pulled deeper into politics, a process that really began during his student days, Pogrund noticed that "he was scholarly as always, but there was now also a fluency and passing which put it among the finest oratory I had heard."

Pogrund's book is also, in part, a touching chronicle of his correspondence with an imprisoned man who was one of the founders of black resistance to apartheid. Sobukwe was arrested and jailed after the PAC organized the Sharpeville demonstration in 1960 against pass laws, a seminal event in modern South African history in which police fired and killed 68 people. He was jailed until 1969 when he was released for health reasons but remained a banned person in an isolated small city until he died of cancer in 1978.

While Sobukwe was locked up, Pogrund managed, through the help of sympathetic friends, to have him steadily supplied with newspapers, books, clothes, food and other necessities. The letters that Sobukwe sent out to the author depict a man with a healthy intellectual appetite and who was surprisingly upbeat despite the grim sobriety caused by apartheid.

The book is also an informal history of early anti-apartheid resistance. The PAC and the African National Congress were both banned in 1960, forcing them to go underground and soon into exile. The Communist Party was banned in 1950. (All three organizations would remain illegal until 1990 when they and others were unbanned by President F.W. de Klerk.)

One learns how the PAC, less prominent than Mandela's ANC, emerged as a breakaway faction of "Africanists" who felt that the ANC was not dedicated enough to its stated goal of ending white domination. It also perceived the ANC as working too closely with non-blacks and thought that communist influence was so strong that the organization had substituted class struggle for the all-important aim of achieving African Nationalism. The irony of all this, Pogrund points out, was that white newspapers (and no doubt the authorities) saw the Africanists as "extremist rebels" of the ANC which was itself also viewed as "extremist."

One weakness of the book is that it does not adequately confront a key and potentially illuminating trouble area for Sobukwe. The author gives passing treatment to the issue of membership within the PAC. The organization decided that it was to be comprised of blacks and "colored" or mixed race people. This fitted with Sobukwe's claim that "Africans are the only people who, because of their material position, can be interested in the complete overhaul of the present structure of [South African] society." Was this really true? Did it turn out to be a tactical mistake when contrasted with the more inclusive policy of the ANC?

Pogrund estimates that in 1960 the PAC had slightly more than 20,000 signed members while the ANC had between 27,000 to 28,000. But, he claims, actual support for both groups was greater than the numbers indicated since party organization was hampered by police harassment.

In sum, Pogrund's book is an eloquent testimony of how an inter-racial friendship survived despite apartheid's seemingly all-powerful, divisive power.

As an experienced researcher of contemporary South Africa and its remarkable transition to democracy, I found this book quite extraordinary in its penetrating insights into the so-called South African miracle.

I recommend it to anyone with an interest in military sociology and civil military relations. At times I was utterly riveted by some of its insights and revelations behind the public face of what has happened in South Africa. I have no doubt it will strongly appeal to both an academic and general audience.

Song of Be is an extraordinary book. You have to read it over at least twice to fully understand it, but its worth it. It focuses on the life of a young African girl, a bushman, who moves to a farming plantation with her mother. She finds out to much about her past, and pays a harsh price for it. This book is a realistic fiction novel, as the bushman were really put through similar situations. I rate it five stars, and recommend for anyone to read it.

Credo Mutwa once again speaks with power and authority about Mother Africa. Told in his own conversational voice, the Sanusi (High Sangoma) Mutwa reveals much of Africa's mighty knowledge. See Credo Mutwa's various prophesies later in the book for living proof of his visionary abilities. eg: He predicts the role of Monica Lewinsky in Bill Clinton's career. Etcetera! Credo Mutwa is no doubt an authority in his field and we in South Africa look to him as such. Read and learn where-ever you are. This man is talking about the near future lives of us all.