South Africa Books

Very well and detailed written ,this book gives you an insight on the enslaved Muslims in America then no other Book that I have read so far.
It gives you an insight on the situation in Africa (Political and economical )at the time when slavery started and contiued.Reasons why their own country man where selling each other tribal conflicts and religious differences.
It is not a book that is written like a tale it will most likely take you some time to finish reading it.

This book has brought tears to my eyes as well as joy. This book should be read by all people especially the African American and Caribbean people who have African descent. We must honor our ancestors struggle for freedom. When we honor them we bring honor to ourselves. As African people we will never be free until we free our minds. No one will be free until he knows himself and the history of his ancestors and all those who came before them. Knowledge of self is the key to true freedom. This book is a very courageous book that is full of lost but not forgotten history of the Enslaved Africans in the Americas. May God bless the author, Sylviane A. Diouf and all those who seek wisdom and knowledge for the sake of freedom, Justice and world peace.

Diouf's "Servants of Allah" is one of the few highly researched and well written accounts of the West African Muslims history in the context of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

This book, in my opinion is an undeniable truth in the face of the few so called "afrikan-centered scholars" (very well known, btw) who blindly and blatantly bash and reject the religion of Islam and its African adherents, not realizing, or wanting to fully realize the pivotal impact of the Black African Muslims during the enslavement period.

In fact the Muslims of Songhay, Mali, Hausaland, Senegambia, Guinea Coast, etc... who were ripped away from their thriving African homelands and brought to the Americas under the cloak of European Christianity were the valiant masterminds of the major slave revolts including the jihads ("holy wars")waged in Brazil (Bahia), Louisiana, Haiti (yes the infamous Haitian Revolution was lead by Macandal, who was a sufi muslim leader).

However what is most striking are the Diouf's researched writings into some of the Muslims themselves, true Afrikan warriors like Job ben Solomon (A Wolof prince who was proficient in 5 languages including Arabic, and returned to Africa after only 3 years of enslavement in the New World), Ibrihim Abd ar-Rahman, who was able to write an entire autobiography in Arabic of his experience in chattel slavery.

For the sake of brevity, I must conclude by giving a tremendous BRAVO! for sister Diouf's powerhouse book, and I could not recommend this book enough!

Peace brothers and sisters!
Karamou Alifaa Fatafindou

This is an excellent piece of writing and deserves to be read by anyone interested in the history of the Transantlatic Slavery and the implantation of Islam in the Americas.

This is a significant study that suffers, however, from insufficient knowledge of Islam.

This spiritual/religious based book is presented differently than Gandhi, Tolstoy, and other philosophers that I have read. This book is more rooted in the events of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, a board that Desmond Tutu headed after apartheid ended. The goal of this board was to grant amnesty to individuals and to learn of the travesties that occurred during apartheid. Tutu spends time to talk about the reasons and purpose of the board while lending several chapters to discuss several of the eye-witness reports and events described while heading the committee.

After he sets up the purpose and ideals behind the board along with some of the testimony from individuals, he then begins to dive into his dialogue about what these events mean and how they relate to his overall conclusion of "No Future Without Forgiveness." This book did two great things for me: First, it introduced me to apartheid, something I have not read too much about. Tutu described the conditions not only pre-apartheid, but after Nelson Mandela became the president of South Africa and other related events. Second, I was able to see him unfold his spiritual plan of how the country was to move forward after so many years of people being dehumanized and a huge social structure changing.

It was the combination of the historical and philosophical elements that made this book special to me. I highly recommend it.

This book is a remarkable insider's account of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) by a truly amazing individual. The book is much more than a summary of the historic event. Desmond Tutu deftly defends the argument that forgiveness and restorative justice are better strategies than retributive justice and offers the hope of similar applications to other historical and current conflicts.

The two primary benefits of restorative justice are: (1) the truth will be drawn out by the possibility of amnesty which will provide closure for victims and transparency to ensure we are not condemned to repeat it, and (2) forgoing retributive justice will break the chain of blows and promote reconciliation between the parties that have to continue living with each other. There are also multiple practical concerns. The restorative justice process allows the TRC to shift the burden of proof from the prosecution to the amnesty applicant drastically reducing the cost, time, and resources required by the government. Finally, having come to power through a negotiated political process as opposed to a military victory it would be more difficult for the government to impose a Nuremberg style retributive process.

To prevent the moral hazard of bad precedents, Desmond Tutu categorically states that this is an ad-hoc process (a one-time deal) and multiple stringent conditions must be met to grant amnesty, (1) the offense had to be politically motivated and occur during a specified time frame, and (2) the applicant had to be found to be completely open and honest and demonstrate full accountability for his or her actions. Ethically, some critics may contest the commission's right to speak for the victims in providing amnesty. The author counters this by highlighting the fact that the commission members had been directly involved and lived through the struggles. He also states his belief that victims (whether alive or not) are never freed from the captivity of grief and anger until they are able to forgive and reconcile their perpetrators.

This book is nice and concise as well as clear. It could have benefited from additional historical information surrounding Apartheid to provide additional context. Nelson Mandela's autobiography (Long Walk to Freedom) is a fantastic in that regard and is well worth the read and provides a great background for this text.

Per ad hype, I anticipated something similar to the writings of Gahndi or Tolstoy on comparable topics. However, this is more a biopic overview of the remarkable work of Mandela with 'notes and commentary' by Tutu. While the Mandela process of forgiveness, in the face of unimaginable atrocities, is very much worth one's study and incorporation, that's not why I bought the book. Desmond does not believe forgiveness is possible w/o perpetrator public confession and request for forgiveness. What happens to a victim's future when the perpetrator[s] is dead, unavailable or unwilling? The relevance of this treatise for us garden-variety souls in a benign democracy is missing.

Bishop Tutu chaired the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose task it was to give voice to the victims of apartheid and to foster reconciliation between the races in South Africa following the transfer of power there. It's a quick read, which details atrocities committed during apartheid and eloquently discusses how both the blacks and whites were victims of this intrinsically evil system.

It's a book written from the heart of a man who understands that revenge offers no hope to society. There are brief references comparing the South Africa "success story" to other troubled spots in the world where revenge killing has gone on for generations. The title says it all, "No Future Without Forgiveness". An interesting read that's worth the time.

I was fascinated by the courage and foresight of the South African people regarding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Tutu's account was very readable yet profound in the truth he was trying to explicate: revenge and retaliation do not heal; they create bigger divisions between the victim and the perpetrator. I think he clearing illustrates how forgiveness is the harder, but ultimately saner, route.

I read this book just before my month long tour of S. Africa. For what it is, which is a quick summary of the entire history of the region that is now called South Africa, this book excelled. Nearly everything I saw around me on my trip had meaning and history because I read this book. When people talked about Bantu people or Xhosa or Zulu, I knew what people they were talking about and a little about them because of this book. When I visited Robben Island or Soweto, it meant more to me. When I saw a huge pile of gold colored dirt in Johannesburg, I knew what it was. And a million more examples, all because of this book.

However, the reviewer "Book Nut" who gave it only two (2!) stars does have some valid points: there are some details that were not mentioned that were worth mentioning, and sometimes this can be construed as a lack of objectivity. One the other hand, how could it be done any other way? It was, after all, written by a human, not a robot, and there is, after all, a limit as to how many words you can fit into 384 pages. I'm also in partial agreement with Book Nut about the last chapter, which is about the post-apartheid gov't since 1994: it is not pessimistic nor is it racist to say that the gov't since 1994 has had some serious shortcomings, and in some areas has been truly awful. However, I'd take the operational shortcomings of the current government over the oppression of the previous one any day, even if the shortcomings were much worse than they are. Besides, you try forming a gov't from scratch! They have done very well with what they had to work with. ...I'd bet lots of money that Book Nut is a white South African who is old enough that he or she remembers how life was for him or her SELF under apartheid, and thus we should take what he or she says about this book with a grain of salt (we all need a bit more balance).

The history of South Africa is very exciting and emotional; even more so because it is so recent and "on-going." If you don't really know much of anything about South Africa, I highly suggest reading this book. I don't know of a better first book on the subject. For an excellent source of current information about South Africa, read The Mail & Guardian, a famous weekly newspaper (they also have a website) that engages in real investigative journalism.

I wrote to seller to ask when book might be arriving as a time deadline was approaching for us--I never got a response. I do believe that the book arrived in the MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE ALLOTTED TIME however.

I thought it almost a must read for South Africans who were subjected to the Apartheid era history at school. I say that as a born and bred South Africa.

In this excellent history of South Africa, Professor Leonard Thompson of Yale University, gives the reader a truly holistic history of South Africa. Instead of beginning the history of South Africa with the arrival of the European explorers, he begins with the information that archaeologist have gained on the earliest humans in the area. Then, he follows the evolution of the area, showing how history unfolded for all of its people, especially the black South Africans who always did make up a majority of the inhabitants of the region.

Overall, I found this to be a fascinating, and highly informative book. So many of the older books focus exclusively on the white South Africans, bringing in the rest only when they become "important" to the story of the whites. And, so many more recent publications present recent South African history in a triumphalist manner, as if utopia has finally been achieved.

Instead, this book eschews both of those fallacies, and looks at South African history with a clear-eyed and open-minded fashion, giving the reader a good idea of what has really happened. I must say that I think that this is the best South African history that I have read so far. So, if you want to really know about South Africa, I would recommend that you get this great book. I give it two thumbs up!

2000 was a rough year for publishing a history of South Africa, even one as superbly written and brilliantly researched as Leonard Thompson's far too blandly titled A HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA.

So much hung still in the balance, a precarious circumstance so potent that it reduced Thompson to this final, modest sentence: 'Nothing is preordained in human history. In 2000 it was still conceivable that the dreams of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, and millions of other South Africans would eventually, in some fashion, triumph.'

Indeed.

Six years later, this reviewer has had opportunity to observe the astonishing steps the South African people have taken towards establishing a multiracial civil society. Although immense challenges remain, Mandela, Mbeki, and even a more sympathetically reviewed de Klerk can rightly be seen as the protagonists - though hardly of equal stature - in one of modern history's great human dramas.

Leonard Thompson has proven himself equal to the task of chronicling all of South Africa's known historical periods with a lucidity that has well served its subject matter. Rarely does history go down so easily and hungrily as do Thompson's 358 lovingly written pages.

The six years since its publication have been so full that one longs for another volume from Thompson's angle, hopefully more confident that that victory that remains so undetermined in human history can - from time to time and in the most longsuffering places - be achieved.

Thompson celebrating the South African people's realization of the secularly sainted elder Mandela's vision, say, ten years from 2006.

Now *there's* a sequel worth pre-ordering.

In the meantime, it would be difficult to find a single volume so blessed of an historian's virtues as the one Thompson has given us.

This is a compelling story, but it's full of inference and excessively fluffy. From a historian's perspective Huffman does not have enough evidence to be legitimate. If you're looking for a real history of either Mississippi or West Africa (my two areas of expertise) look elsewhere.

A 20th century Missisipian explores how the actions of a few slaveholders before the Civil war have affected modern history. A very good read.

Huffman takes readers through quite a journey as he gives the history of abolitionists in Mississippi and the ultimate return of blacks to Africa. His story is fascinating and I simply couldn't put down the book until I read every page.

What a great story. This book covers so many subjects in a complete and interesting way. There is the detective story of the slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and their lives, a story of the current state of affairs in southern Mississippi and finally a gripping account of modern day Liberia and its turbulent history. Just a great story that I wished would go on longer.

Alan Huffman's book on the history of a group of freed slaves, their journey back to Africa and the modern story of Liberia is important and very interesting. Huffman gives us (1) a view of life and history that formed our society and culture in Mississippi, (2) provides an overview of Liberia's history and our connection to it (a chapter of US history that is seldom mentioned ... I never heard of Liberia and the US role in its founding before arriving in West Africa in 1978), and (3) shows that Faulkner was right in saying that the past continues to impact us.

In 1978 I went to Guinea Bissau,West Africa, to work on a USAID (foreign aid) program in the country's rice growing region. It was there that I heard, for the first time, of a group of freed slaves returning to Africa and establishing a country, Liberia, in 1821 with it's capital named after the fifth US president James Monroe. By 1838, 20,000 American blacks (ex-slaves and freed men --- including the slave group from Jefferson County that was the subject of his research) made up the population of the Colonization Society and Liberia. Today the descendants of these settlers make up about 5 percent of Liberia's population. This elite group dominated the political and economic sectors for more that 150 years. A backlash against this group in 1980 by descendants of local tribesmen caused the chaos that grips modern day Liberia. It's important to me and you today because of the potential links that states in chaos have to terrorist groups (Huffman talks of the potential laundering of Al Queda money through diamond sales in Liberia and the attempt to use the country as a conduit for the purchase of illegal arms --- including stinger missles).

Huffman brings the reader full circle and gives interesting details of his research and the people he meets along the way. He also provides details on our Mississippi history about slave and slaveholder interaction and the cultural values it imprinted on our society. I also liked the tidbits of history like the origin of Alcorn State University (evolving from a school for the sons of plantation owners to the first land grant college in the United States). This is a good book that I highly recommend.

This is an absolutely incredible book about the story of AIDs in South Africa. Never before has the AIDs crisis been made so real to the reader. The story is focused around hero Nkosi Johnson's short life and legacy. Jim Wooten did a wonderful job of conveying the emotion and struggle of this conflict which is the greatest enemy of Africa today. Whoever gave this book two stars for not saying Wooten got across the emotion, must not have a pulse. I highly recommend this book for your own good of exposure to the AIDs crisis. There is something for all of us to learn from this story.

The book was initially purchased and discussed as a part of my participation in a book club. I purchased three more copies and sent them to friends knowing they would enjoy this book as I did.

It is a very touching book and I would recommend it to everyone. I received the book in a little over a week and it was in perfect condition.

My name is Sewon, and I am a freshman in high school. In one of my classes, I had to read a book, We Are All The Same by Jim Wooten. The cover of the book tempted me at first because it was a real story and the comments of other people were praiseful. Although I had a hard time reading this book at first because several chapters such as chapter 1 and 2 were really boring, it was a really good book to read, overall. To briefly describe the book, this book represents the life of Gail Johnson and Nkosi. Gail is a woman who adopts a boy from South Africa, a segregated country, who is living with AIDS. This book shows many important qualities that we must have in life, such as courage and equality. Since this is a real story, this is more interesting and realistic. While I was reading this book, I felt as though I was part of the book. The strength of this book is that the book is not that long. The readers may become bored when the book is too long. a majority of pages tells of life's teachings while using very eloquent language. I really think this is the best book for any of the teenagers who are interested in reading the book! I really enjoyed reading the book and I strongly recommend it for teenagers.

Loved this book. I learned so much about the history (and present) of South Africa. And what it was like for a real person to live through it. Addressing issues from both sides and through three generations. This story was definitely told by someone passionate about the subject and emotionally involved with the characters--in a good way. I am so thankfuls that someone has told Nkosi's story and the story of South Africa. It is pretty even and doesn't shy away from the flaws of its heroes or the truth of the times. Very well told, a must read to anyone who wants to consider themselves educated and interested in international matters. The AIDS crisis isn't something anyone can ignore anymore and this book really brings it home. Also, just a great story.

The book not only features the story told by Donald Woods but has extensive court interviews with Biko showing his true ideas that scared the racist government of South Africa so much that they had him killed.

Excellent book.

This is much more than a simple biography of Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa and one of the seminal figures in the anti-apartheid movement, it is an insider's look and condemnation of the System. Though Biko died young and apartheid has faded into memories for most people who had the misfortune of living in it, his is an excellent example of the horroific prejudices to which people, even in these enlightened times, can be subjected. This book uses incredible detail and many essential sources to tell a lively, powerful, and important story. I watched Cry Freedom several years ago and was inspired tolearn more about the subject, and I would recommend the same path, because the movie really brings the characters and issues to life. I would caution people who only want to learn the basics about the history of apartheid or Biko, that this is a very indepth and detailed book, that can be difficult to follow if you are not familiar with the subjects, so I might recommend a slightly more elementary book for a first experience.

Woods wrote this book to show the world how desperate the need for change was in south Africa. There is a vast seperation between the black natives and the whites in south africa, up until recently the country lived under a currupt white goverment which did not allow blacks to live in white towns as anything other then slaves, forcd them into awful getto which had awful living conditions, taught them in school only what they needed to know to serve the whites, and constently terrorised their neighborhoods. Steve Biko stood up peicefully, not demanding radical change, but understanding that he must change what has happened to his people. Black Contiousness was his approch. He wanted the natives of south africa to learn their own history at school and not the whites, he wanted them to have pride in themselves and understand their own humanity. Steve Biko was band and very liking killed for saying this. Blacks who stood up in South Africa always seemed to die in police custodity one way or another. After his death Woods was inspired to write this book, he was band in South Africa and risked his life to escape the country with his book. This is a must read for anyone who is not educated about the hardships of South Africa or Africa as a whole.

The number one element stopping Blacks today is the absence of consciousness and the Orisha Biko exudes that. His essays are honest and concise and he gives you a glimpse of what South Africa was like and the resistance by him and a number of other Africans. Blacks have to be leading the league in terms of 'liberation literature' but it doesn't matter because they don't read and when they do it's not material like this. Hence, the situation remains.

Despite the dramatic shift in the political climate of South Africa since his death, Biko's words and beliefs are every bit as relevant today. His Black Consciousness movement was as much a political force against apartheid as it was an indictment of self-inflicted notions of inferiority. This book powerfully tells the story of Biko's life, his beliefs and the circumstances of living in banishment in South Africa. In the absence of any physical memorial for Biko, this book is a powerful rememberance to a man who should not be forgotten, and a tribute to an author who bravely brought us Biko's story.

Is blood thicker than, well ..... diamonds! Wilbur Smith, writing in 1971, explores the rivalry between an estranged foster-child and heir to the Van Der Byl diamond fortune and his rival "brother" Benedict. Throw in the love of a woman and whammo you gotta adventure novel.

"The Diamond Hunters", while not Smith's best novel, is nevertheless a fantastic read. As Smith's has matured over the years his novels have become a bit more tedious. Not so with Hunters.

"The Diamond Hunters" comes right at you from the first page. There is action, adventure, love and scenery.

Just about every Wilbur Smith novel is good. This one will not disappoint you. It is fun, fast and entertaining. Well worth your time...

Densel Myers
Yukon, Oklahoma

I am sorry the books were a gift but the recepent gives great reviews and wishes to have more from that auther'

Wilbur Smith just proves how good he is this is a must read book with characteristics of betrayal and loyalty coming into the fray.The ending was not finished strongly but never the less another work of art by Wilbur Smith

This novel was written over 30 years ago. It is not as polished as his newer books but it contains all the elements that make Smith one of the masters of action and adventure. Exotic locale, unforgettable characters and a prose that takes you `there'.

Let Wilbur take you to a trip to Africa, you will be coming back for more.

I have seen Wilbur Smith novels on the bookshelves for years but for one reason or another none of them had ever really piqued my interest, but while browsing in an airport bookstore looking for something to read on a long flight I picked this one up and as I began to read I found that my flight was too short. I didn't want to be interrupted for something as trivial as changing flights. I intend to read more Wilbur Smith in the near future.

The way Smith builds the story of Johnny Lance being an outcast and the way that he discovers the truth about his childhood and the animosity that builds between him and his foster brother Benedict Van der Byle makes for a spellbinding read. Smith's descriptions of the African landscape and exotic locations are well written without being over-done. When he describes Thunderbolt and Suicide you can smell the salt air and see the foamy spray shooting skyward and hear the crashing of the huge waves against the unyielding rock formations.

Like all fiction stories this one is not for everyone, but if you enjoy action/adventure, emphasis on action you will find this a very enjoyable read.

Beverly Naidoo, the author of No Turning Back was born in Johannesburg South Africa 1943. She won a Newberry award and she has written many books such as Journey to Jo'Burg and Chain of Fire. In No Turning Back Sipho runs away from home to escape from his stepfather's horrible abuse. He meets a gang and he follows them around the city learning the ways to survive on the street. Sipho has to endure cold harsh nights sleeping on the freezing hard ground with an empty stomach. I think that this book is very interesting because the author wrote about her hometown and therefore she understands the setting. It also is interesting because it teaches people how other people live in poor countries, and why some children run away from home. It is also interesting because the main character goes though lots of trouble with drunk people, homeless people and police officers. The book No Turning Back is a good book because it is very exciting and action packed, I recommend this amazing book.

The author of No Turning back is Beverly Naidoo. She was born in Johannesburg South Africa in 1943. Her involvement with the anti-apartheid led her to be imprisoned in solitary confinement at age 21.
The main idea in the book is this 12 year old boy named Sipho that ran away from home because his stepfather abused him. When he was on the streets he joined a gang of homeless kids and ran into problems like being hungry, losing clothes and running away from strangers. My opinion on the book No Turning Back is that is a good thriller and it really develops the main character. The only thing I don't like about the book is the ending. I liked it because it was a thriller I couldn't put it down.

Beverley Naidoo was born in Johannesburg South Africa which is where the book takes place. She won a newberry award for the book Journey to Jo'burg. In No Turning Back, a 12 year old boy named Sipho runs away from his family after being abused by his stepfather in Johannesburg. He was homeless so he decided to join a gang. The gang went through many things like getting thrown in a lake and homeless people stealing their hideout. I like most of this book because it is action packed and there's a lot of events in this book. It's also not boring to read because all of the parts of the book are very interesting like the part where the gang got thrown into the lake at night. The book is also exciting because it has a lot of emotion in it. Even when the book gets to a part where it's calm, something suddenly will happen making it interesting. I recommend this book for people that like action packed adventures.

This is a novel about a boy in South Africa who runs away from home because of his abusive stepfather. In the beginning it is about the boy's life on the streets and his adventures with the Malude. This part of the book is interesting and exciting, but the second half of the book gets boring, because he starts to live with a family, just like a regular kid. Overall I thought that this book was not that interesting, and I would not recomend it.

Beverley Naidoo is an award winning author. Her book No Turning Back is exceptional. The story takes place in South Africa in the early 1990s, where a young black African boy of twelve years named Sipho makes a decision to leave home to avoid further abuse from his violent stepfather. Sipho makes his way to the streets of Johannesburg. Survival on the streets is sometimes just as hard and cruel as life with his stepfather. Learning who you can trust, hunger and cold nights are a few of the problems Sipho faces.
The author in my opinion touches base on many issues including homeless street children, drugs, racism and a country on the verge of change. The book shows many examples on how the South African's rose to support Nelson Mandela and his views of restructuring a troubled nation. The books realism gives readers a chance to become familiar with life in South Africa. Sipho struggles are those of everyday people in this region of the world. I would recommend this book as one not to pass over. You can follow Sipho from being alone, threw new friendships and his hopes for a better tomorrow.

Every now and then my life gets so jumbled, or my hormones rise or fall and depression sets in, and I just need a rousing good laugh. That's when I pick up this book. It has never failed to at least amuse or, more often, to induce a tears-in-my-eyes unrestrained laughing fit. While this can be disconcerting to co-workers in nearby cubicles, it nevertheless works wonders for my sour moods.

Totally loony in a restrained British (or in this case, South African) manner, this tale of apartheid, fetishism, gender role swapping, gigantic firearms and novocaine in the mythical South African town of Piemburg is quite simply a hoot.

That it works better than Prozac as a mood leveler (Fair warning-- I'm not a psychiatrist, I just play one on Amazon!) is a wonderful bonus.

This is political farce with a vengeance. The back jacket on the paperback says this book is not a political book in any imagined sense of that term and that's essentially true. The author's position on the old South African regime is pretty clear from the word "go" but it never dampens the fun.

The book is so over the top that its characters come off as cardboard cutouts of a caricature--yet, somehow, Sharpe still finds a way to imbue them with enough connective personality that we are drawn into the farce willingly. The book is extremely funny--I laughed out loud at least twenty times. It is a rather crude undertaking--but then again, so was the old South Africa, and this books achieves the unique aspect of being extremely sexually explicit while never actually rendering an actual sex scene--not for want of trying on the "heroines" part.

All in all a lot of fun is the crudity and explicitness don't put you off. If that's the case, seek humor elsewhere.

I enjoyed it enough that I have ordered another couple of Sharpe's books to see if they are as good. I have high hopes on that score.

This decidedly intemperate dark jewel has been criticized for, among other things, being short on a coherent logical plot. Fair enough. And saturated with unsympathetic characters. Point taken. So what? If you can find a better written rant of absurd, politically incorrect, howlingly hilarious black (as in motif, not ethnic) humor by all means set Riotous Assembly aside and go with your more entertaining discovery, and be so kind as to post its name here so that we may all partake.

Compared to Riotous Assembly, Mel Brooks' best sounds like a grim Savonarola tract.

If you're ever in the mood for a hugely over-the-top farce about apartheid-era South Africa, well, this is the book for you. Sharpe spent a decade there before being deported as a subversive, and after reading this unrestrained comic pummeling of the RSA, one can only wonder why it took the authorities so long to give him the boot. Indeed authority is target number one in this fast-paced story set in the small city of Piemburg. It all starts when an elderly semi-aristocratic Englishwoman calls the police to report that she's shot her Zulu cook. Refusing police Kommandant van Heerden's best attempts to cover up the matter, she reveals that the cook was also her lover, which so appalls him that he immediately declares a state of emergency and mobilizes the entire police force. And so begins a massive comedy of errors, in which a "Kaffir-Killer" Konstabel Els plays a large role, as does the slimy Luitenant Veerkamp, and matters take a turn for the utterly bizarre, as rubber fetishes, bondage, a drunken bishop, porno films, cross dressing, and penile novocain injections are all introduced to the plot. As one might surmise from such a litany, the plot spins ever more wildly out of control until events come to a head at--appropriately enough--the insane asylum. All the antics are intermittently funny, and it's somewhat refreshing to see the horrors of apartheid treated with rather less than the usual gravitas. Worth a read if you've got a special interest in South Africa or a soft spot for broad farce, otherwise not all that noteworthy

In many respects, apartheid South Africa provides a great setting for farces and satirical novels. Tom Sharpe ably exploits the possibilities in this tale involving an interracial affair, a bishop who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a murder investigation by irredeemably dumb and racist Afrikaner policemen.
Parts of Riotous assembly are very funny and Sharpe maintains the hectic pace of the narrative throughout. But in the end, I was disappointed with this book. My dissatisfaction had nothing to do with being an Afrikaner or with an aversion to dark humour. Carl Hiaasen is one of my favourite authors, and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie version of Sharpe's Wilt. My problem was with the characters, who seemed to have no personalities whatsoever beyond the stereotypes they represent. To truly enjoy a book (even a farce), I have to develop an interest in or establish some kind of rapport with the characters, and in the case of Riotous assembly this never happened.

In this violent text, an old woman learns that she has an incurable cancer. She meets her `angel of death' and together they pass the last months of her life in `a world of rage and violence', in a country (South-Africa) that is `a nightmare from beginning to end, with white zealots preaching the old regime of death to children some too young to tie their shoelaces.'

The deadly cancer of the old woman is an allegory of the country's own destination: `I have cancer from the accumulation of shame I have endured in my life. That is how cancer comes about: from self-loathing the body turns malignant and begins to eat away at itself.'
That eating away is `the reign of the locust family': children burning their own schools, and killing the young even if they are colored ones.
Like the old woman, the country is `a bad tempered old hound snoozing in the doorway, taking its time to die'. Like the old woman the country will turn into smoke and ash.

What is J.M. Coetzee's answer to this devastating situation? Denouncing, for `writing is the foe of death.'

With `Age of Iron', J.M. Coetzee has written an iron masterpiece.

In this novel first published in 1990, Mr Coetzee gives the grim account of both a human being facing imminent death and a country - South Africa - still immersed in the tragedy of the apartheid regime. Mrs Curren, a professor of classics in Cape Town, has just received the fatal news from her doctor, Dr Syfert, that she suffers from an incurable form of cancer. Part of the narrative consists in an imaginary letter Mrs Curren will never write to her daughter who left for America in 1976. Indeed she does not consider it to be just to share her burden with her daughter but, as she puts it, "to resist the craving to share my death", "to take my leave without bitterness" and "to embrace death as my own, mine alone." But since it is nearly impossible for her to approach death without the support of another human being, she ends up sharing her thoughts and life with Mr Vercueil, a tramp she finds one morning sleeping in the garden of her house.
Death is omnipresent in Mr Coetzee's work, not only Mrs Curren's but in the townships of Cape Town where the lives of the coloureds are worth next to nothing and therefore death is as common as life for the people obliged to live there. A powerful, sad and unforgettable tale whose characters and events cut to the bone.

One can't help but be touched by the personalities woven in this story. Far from stereotypes, the characters are given credibility as individuals, each with their own stories, each with their own reasons for action. Even with the fall of official apartheid, this book goes into the human condition, and with or without governmental promotion, apartheid or something very much like it, will always be with us.

As usual, we can trust Coetzee to deliver some brilliant insights on the human condition, most specifically as it related to South Africa during the last years of Apartheid. Here, however, I felt Coetzee's stiff, cold prose style and his inability to create rich and whole characters undermined the storytelling and left me wishing it held together a bit more tightly; as it is the characters feel very flat and the book loses its emotive force because of this. Still, it's definitely worth reading to get a sense of the reality of Apartheid and how a government can keep its own citizenry ignorant.

Interesting and non-obvious look at apartheid. This book raises questions such as: what responsibility does one have for the crimes of a government that have benefitted you - even if you find those crimes repulsive and didn't ask for them; what kind of future can a nation have when it's children have been so brutalized that they become brutalizors themselves. I also think, as my title implies, that this book really exposes the way a community can blind itself or be blinded by others, gov't, media, etc., to the carnage and horror taking place all around them. If you can believe that a South African would be blind to the inhumanity trangressing in their country, then it's not so hard to believe how people in less brutal situations can also not understand or believe what goes on in their community.