South Africa Books

Ghost History: the intricate details lost to time. This book captures the Ghost History of the 32 Battalion. Additionally, in the finest traditions of all great Regimental Sergeant Major's, the author, an ex- RSM of the unit, captures the unit history, essence, spirit and legacy of the 32 Battalion.

This is a well researched, first hand account of the infamous 32 Battalion. There are also a number of maps that show the area of operation and there are a few tactical maps that futher clarify some of the actual missions. For those that serve in the profession of arms this is a great book that offers lessons on operations, techniques, tactics and procedures in insurgency and counterinsurgency; especially valuable were the lessons on how the 32 Battalion and SADF leadership dealt with the clans, tribes and in some cases an illiterate force. This book is literally a text book case on how to organize and train an elite indigenous counterinsurgency force.

Terry Tucker, PhD
Battle Staff Trainer Afghanistan

this book is a detailed history of the 32 batt. and helped me to understand a little about the controversy about them, and their oporations. it however is writen a bit like a text book, and a little research as you read it is needed. i do recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn about what happened from the source, in stead of some slanted news report.

This is really slow and not what you would expect. The minute detailing of every mundane aspect of building this unit is excruciating.

By the author's own admission a subjective report.The story of forgotten hero's, shunned by the political survivors of the old South Africa and hated by the new order.Too little was told about the Citizen Force officers and NCO's who served with this unit.However it is well written and worthwile reading to all who is interested in the history of South Africa.

One of the 32 Battalion's longest-serving members presents the unadorned true story of his unit in 32 Battalion: The Inside Story Of South Africa's Elite Fighting Unit. Nicknamed "The Buffalo Soldiers", South Africa's 32nd Battalion was undefeated in twelve years of front-line battle, feared by enemies ranging from Cuban armies to Nambian guerrilla fighters. Called "Os Terriveis", or the Terrible Ones by their enemies, the unit met its most unlikely demise when peace came to southern Africa and politics chose to dissolve the unit's fraternity in 1993. 32 Battalion makes no embellishments or apologies, but rather presents the true story of the unit in clear terms, illustrated by a handful of black-and-white maps and diagrams and an inset section of color plates. A thrilling expose of modern military history.

I've been reading Abiyoyo to preschool children for years. They always love the power that comes from overcoming the giant. But they always ask what happened to Abiyoyo. I usually tell them he went to get a manicure, pedicure and a haircut - and for a trip to the dentist! Now, with Abiyoyo Returns we have a wonderful new story to tell. And the children are quick to notice that the father in the new book is the boy all grown up! They especially like the page where the little girl is washing the giant's stinking feet.

I just got this book in addition to the original Abiyoyo and wasn't sure about it at first. The new story and graphics are just as good as the first. Another great addition to any book collection.

I LOVED Abiyoyo and read it a lot to the kids I babysit. The new one is cute, but it loses a lot of the fun, magic, and moral of the first one. I was very disapointed.

Pete Seeger's famous song "Abiyoyo" is a family favorite of ours, so I was intrigued to happen upon his "Abiyoyo Returns." For anyone unfamiliar with the story, Abiyoyo is a fearsome giant who eats people when he's hungry and is generally destructive and scary.

In this tale, warmly illustrated by Michael Hays, Abiyoyo is summoned up to help move a boulder so that the local townsfolk can build a dam. But the magic wand used to call Abiyoyo up breaks, and there is no way to get Abiyoyo to disappear again. There is a Pandora's Box element to the tale, and the wisdom of elders is deftly interwoven with bright ideas contributed by the children in the village.

Kids will get a special kick out of the idea that the young heroine--who looks to be maybe eight or ten years old--comes up with the idea that will allow the townspeople to peacefully co-exist with Abiyoyo, while still getting their dam built and the boulder removed.

Continue your favorite childhood book with your children. My children love Abiyoyo Returns. A wonderful story about differences, acceptance and love. It will be a favorite in your family's library. Great holiday gift.

...........for this book for 8 years. I read it 8 years ago, but I borrowed it at someone's house. Since then, I have been searching for my own copy that I can read over and over. This is by far, one of the best books that I have EVER read. I alsmost felt the characters as they jumped from the pages at you.

this book is awsome. i actually felt what the women were feeling. growing up in america, this book allowed me to count my blessings!

Mark Mathabane writes that the oppression of women is widespread in South Africa. This is largely because apartheid over the years emasculated and degraded black men and stripped them of their manhood by depriving them of the means to provide for their families and loved ones. Many of these men found convenient targets for their rage, frustrations, and bitterness in those under their immediate and absolute control, their wives and children. This abuse of women and children was made easy because apartheid, for its own devious ends, encouraged and rewarded tribalism among blacks. Husbands and fathers continued to cling to customs and traditions that had long outlived their usefulness, mainly out of a sense of desperation. Under tribalism men have power, authority, and respect, while in the modern world ruled by the white man they were powerless, got no respect, were called "boys," and were treated as less than dirt. African Women is a harrowing, poignant, heroic, and inspiring saga of three women who, in their individual ways, refused to buckle under to tradition, custom, and oppression. They fought against daunting odds to preserve their individuality and independence, their dignity and pride, their hearts and souls. They worked and raised children in a culture and society where black women had hardly any rights, were daily discriminated against by apartheid, and were regarded as the property of their husbands or fathers by custom. Any attempts to liberate themselves were condemned and harshly dealt with.

Couldn't put this book down! It read like an African Waiting to Exhale only the characters were real. This really showed how over 3 generations more things remained the same than not. These women were very, very strong women who overcame a great deal

This book is terrible.

Every character sounds exactly the same: men, women, 90-year-olds, ten-year-olds. They all speak with exactly the same voice, same personality, same attitudes, same vocabulary same maturity. And since it's written in first-person, but the narration jumps between three women (grandmother, mother, daughter) I constantly had to flip to the beginning of the chapters to remind myself who was speaking (the chapter's are named after the person currently narrating). This is not only because Mathabane lacks the ability to write with any depth, but because each woman's story is virtually identical. Chapter after chapter after excruciating chapter you will find yourself reading the same story over and over and over again with almost no variation whatsoever.

The characters are all two-dimensional and comically absurd and unrealistic. The only two characters with their own personalities, though these two were also identical twins of eachother, were Aunt Matinana and Elizabeth. These two were hilariously evil. They were like diabolical villians out of a James Bond movie. They were supposed to be serious characters, but I couldn't help but expect one of them at any moment to put her pinky to her mouth and demand, "ONE MILLION DOLLARS." Comedy gold.

Mathabane's prose is lazy and immature, constantly using American slang and goofy clichés not only in dialog, but throughout the narration. As if this wasn't out-of-place as it was in a novel about South African women, these clichés were also often used incorectly such as:

"There was no possibility of reconciliation between my parents. Too much water had already flowed under the bridge." (page 194)

Of course, if it's water under the bridge reconciliation has already taken place. That's the whole point of the "water under the bridge" idiom. It refers to things that no longer matter because they happened and are now in the past and insignificant -- like water under the bridge.

And speaking of dialog, I can only describe it as something like frozen dialog concentrate. I kept wondering if I could just add water and stir to get an entire realistic conversation.

To add insult to injury, the editing is atrocious. The book is filled with absurd mistakes such as the following story about white oppression:

"And recently, in one factory in Natal, black female employees had to submit to monthly injections of Depo Provera -- a crude form of birth control with dangerous side effects -- every three months or lose their jobs" (page 11)

When I began reading this the first thought that went through my mind was, "Monthly? Depo Provera is only given on a tri-monthly basis..." Then I reached the end of the paragraph and realized that they were apparently being given the shot monthly every three months, whatever that's supposed to mean. This kind of sloppy writing and non-existent editing is pervasive throughout.

It's really a shame that this book is so bad as it's incredibly important for these peoples' stories to be heard. People around the world should understand what apartheid was and, particularly, how bad women had it and continue to suffer in South Africa. But this is not the book to accomplish this task.

Possibly recommended for junior-high school level reading as it reads like it was written with a pre-teen audience in mind (though this was not deliberate). In fact, much of the dialog sounds like it was plaigerized directly from little girls playing house or having tea parties with dolls.

Ronnie Kasrils is a great man. For a white person in South Africa to empathize with the struggle against apartheid in the 1950s is admirable, but for that person to dedicate his life to fighting against apartheid is truly remarkable and worthy of all praise. This extraordinary man was ready to go to any lengths, giving up his personal pleasures and risking his life and that of his family for a principled fight against one of the 20th Century's most horrid evils.

The book is a seriously entertaining and informative book, a close look at the world of the ANC from someone who was there in the thick of the action. Read this book if you want a more personalized account to compliment the history books and documentaries that give you the big picture. Follow Kasrils as he hides in the jungles running from training camp to training camp, traveling internationally undercover and crossing into South Africa in disguise.

Another great fact about Kasrils' life is that taking up a post in the government has not disconnected him from the struggles for which he fought all his life. He remains a defender of the week and a fighter of injustice wherever it may prevail. Palestinians will always attest to his courage in speaking up against Israeli oppression and his support for Palestinians' human rights.

Despite Alan Rockwell's dismissive review below, Kasril's autobiography is an excellent contribution to the growing collection of memoirs of leaders in the struggle to defeat apartheid. Among the memoirs of the likes of Nelson Mandela, Walter and Albertina Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Albie Sachs, Gillian Slovo (about her parents Joe Slovo and Ruth First), Ronnie Kasril's story is particularly noteworthy for the insight it lends to the armed struggle and Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC. The earlier reviews cover much of the merits and benefit of the book and so I will not repeat. Suffice to say that as a South African old enough to remember the violence, trauma and pain inflicted by the likes of PW Botha and his predecessors in pursuit of a white supremacist vision, and then privileged enough to witness that conflict find a political solution rather than a military one, I find the drivel submitted by Alan Rockwell under the guise of a book review laughably absurd. Or I would, if I didn't find his prejudice and paranoia (albeit concealed by a smug self-righteousness) so frightening familiar. I doubt that he has read the book; indeed, given that all his other reviews deal with American history and he almost always dishes out 5 stars, one wonders how he managed to find himself in this part of the world in the first instance.

In case any other readers are as confused as Alan or somewhat wavering in their confidence about who were the good guys and who were the bad guys in recent South African history, an easy way to tell the wood from the trees is to remember that apartheid was declared a crime against humanity under international law and all four South African winners of the Nobel Peace Prize earned the honour through their work to end apartheid. As for the suggestion that the ANC are no more than a bunch of terrorists, well Alan, two of those Nobel laureates were ANC presidents. I suspect that Alan feels harassed by the critical focus so much of his previously unchecked prejudices have been receiving of late, thanks to the collective and individual efforts of people like Ronnie Kasrils and the national liberation struggles they organise and drive forward. But please Alan, if you going to offer a useful review, leave your stupidity and ignorance at the door.

This is one of the best books about the anti-apartheid struggle I've read - by someone who was in the thick of it who is obviously both brave and politically astute. Ronnie Kasrils, the author, was a leader in the armed struggle and is now a leader in the South African government - Minister of Water and Forestry. His transition is documented in an updated version of this book published by a different publisher.

I am frankly amused by the two reviewers who gave Ronnie Kasrils' "Armed and Dangerous" five star reviews. Of course, they seem to be the lot who would eagerly fly to Ramallah and place flowers on the grave of the monster and babykiller who wrecked his own "peace process".

Kasrils chose, unlike fellow Leftie Hirsh Goodman, to abandon his people and adopt the creed of the Stalinist Jew-haters of Soviet Communism. Goodman, for all of his faults, chose Zionism, and must be respected for that. Kasrils chose a new kind of Hitlerism even if he suggests it was for admirable purposes. To study terrorism under these people, and to take up arms alongside the PLO, Baader Meinhof, and other terrorist groups brings back that old John Lennon quote: "but if you're gonna carry passages from Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow".

The ANC was a terrorist organization. Period. If Kasrils really had guts and brains he would have joined Chief Buthelezi and the Zulus in their principled opposition to reckless Apartheid policies.

Ironically Kasrils is now the director of South Africa's equivalent of the CIA. Or in his case, KGB or Gestapo. He now favors tweed suits and the golf clubs over the khaki and kalashnikov. But deep down inside Kasrils is still a Fascist, as per his remarks supporting Palestinian genocidal bombing against Israel women and children. Furthermore, South Africa's Intelligence agencies have been cited as having possible links to Al Qaeda.

Don't bother with this dribble from a KAPO.

I have just spent two days absorbing his book. Some highlights:

1) The big fights, the important fights, take 25 years or more. The transformative fights, the nation-wide or trans-regional transformations, take 25-50 years.

2) When any government seeks to repress discontent by suspending the due process of law, stand by for a revolution.

3) Fighting this revolution, without a friendly country adjacent to South Africa, and with South African mercenaries and forces all too able to strike at will across Africa, was very very hard. Bomb-making, communications, all hard.

4) Camaraderie should not be allowed to undermine operational security and counterintelligence. From day one, misplaced faith and lax checking of backgrounds was very costly, and the ANC was riddled with informers, many of them passed through the US and UK.

5) The Russians, East Germans, and Cubans all provided aid with no strings attached--indeed, the West's excessive propaganda against communism actually inspired interest in communism. This book is one of the best references I have found, as a US intelligence professional, with respect to the good done by the so-called "main enemy" in the specific case of South Africa.

6) I believe the author when he recounts discussions with Russians focusing on the defense nature of their military investments, and their longer-term strategic focus on beating US capitalism in a straight-up economic competition with socialism. I had to think as I worked through this section: if Ronnie Kasrils could have these discussions, how could CIA get it so wrong all those years?

7) Across the entire book is a full range of clandestine technique. These guys knew how to use newspaper ads, codes, changes in times and dates, pre-arranged blind meetings, brush passes, dead drops, the whole nine yards. They lived it--and unlike US spies, who get sent home, if they failed at undercover operations they paid with their lives or spent years--sometimes decades--in prison.

8) The United Kingdom gets high marks for its balanced reception of ANC officers, and Scotland Yard gets the best marks of all.

9) Key elements of the ANC victory, apart for the grotesque self-destructive nature of apartheid, were persistence, propaganda, infrastructure, and training. Their leadership was clever, strategic, and focused. The ANC also understood that politics was as important as tactical and technical training--the moral is to the material as 10:1 and all that good stuff.

10) Training as well as solidarity were well balanced with sports, music, and art.

11) The East Germans taught them how to do Vietnamese tunnels (see my review of the "Tunnels of Cu Chi.") My first thought was Colombia and drugs--I suspect the Americans have no idea what's under the ground in the Andes.

12) They were not ready for air attacks, especially air attacks streaking in on them from South Africa within other nominally sovereign countries.

13) A major contributor to their eventual success was the over-all trend in the region, with victories in Angola and Zimbabwe chief among the contributing factors.

14) The revolution went through a mutinous and discouraging phase. I was reminded of Bill Moyer's "Doing Democracy" where he quotes Tom Atlee in saying that Stage 5 in any long-term movement toward democracy is inevitably the stage where there is a perception of failure.

15) In the final stages before victory, one of their biggest problems was quality control over incoming recruits and over captured informants and traitors.

16) Chapter 16 is a lovely discussion of their use of open sources of intelligence. He says: "The greatest proportion of intelligence comes from published material. Since South Africa is a modern, industrial country, we were able to acquire information covering almost its entire infrastructure. This included everything from road, rail and power networks to national key points and strategic objectives. Pretoria's predilection for propaganda provided rich pickings from a range of military and police literature."

17) These guys ran a marvelous early warning system that got citizen conscripts, when called up, to call in to telephone answering machines.

18) They pioneered the integration of maps, telephone books, index cards, and brain power in charting all the unoccupied farms across the country, ultimately plotting routes from the border all the way to Pretoria.

19) When De Klerk legalized the ANC, they were initially taken in and got sloppy with security. The author does a fine job of showing that De Klerk, while bowing to the inevitable in the end, was much more duplicitous and hostile to the ANC after starting the reconciliation process, than most in the West realize.

20) The author (who is now the Minister for Intelligence Services after having been the Deputy Minister of Defense) appears to be skilled at understanding the value of the media, and the importance of detecting and fighting disinformation early on.

21) His chapter on his tenure at the Ministry of Defence could teach us something about transformation and how to accelerate it.

In the end, and over-all, I am left with four impressions:

a) Morality really does matter, as does mass. A mass of people with morality is more powerful than an elite with guns.

b) Torture and murder by minions can be forgiven and understood--it is their political masters who must be held accountable.

c) Women are the best. the most steadfast revolutionaries--and their men could not survive decades of hardship without the steadfast commitment of their companions.

d) South Africa is ready (he quotes Thabo Mbeki) to make its own history.

For myself, I am quite certain that Ronnie Kasrils is going to lead South Africa's intelligence community in a way that no other national intelligence leader could possibly understand: in the service of the people, harnessing and inspiring their collective intelligence, placing intelligence in the service of the people.

This is an exceptional person...the real deal.

Written to be a textbook, this book is a good introductory primer into the physical science behind global warming. There are also graphs and discussions on what each country is doing financially (by GDP) to help solve the problem and which countries emit carbon and at what rate. It utilizes an extensive amount of graphs and maps, which makes it very easy to visualize the various topics presented.

I am using this currently as a supplemental text book in a community college class in global warming and have found it to be wonderful. It is not, as some other reviewers have seemed to imply, the end all book on the subject and does not delve into extreme detail into any on particular aspect of global warming. In fact, at a mere 128 pages, I cannot see it as more than a light treatment of the subject. What is does is supplement other textbooks which contain more discussion and less visualization.

This would be a good book for those interested in global warming but that have a hard time visualizing the issues. Combined with other, more detailed books, this would provide excellent information. This would also be recommended as text for us in a high school or college introductory environmental science class.

The authors do an adequate job of presenting the crisis of climate change in the first four chapters. The book is touted as being scientifically rigorous while Bo Kjellen, in the forward, states that it 'provides facts enabling readers to form an independent view of the problems.' This is true for the first 4 chapters. But when it comes to solutions, both of these authors are clearly in the anti-nuclear 'camp' for alternative energy policy. On page 11 they make this sweeping negative statement:

"Concerns over safety and long term storage of rad waste remain and it is not clear that its potential as an adaptation to climate change offers sufficiently strong justification to overcome economic barriers."

And so nuclear energy quickly gets buried by these authors, never to return again in this title. No sources are cited for this justification. No maps/statistics of countries with successful nuclear energy programs like France and Japan. No mention of nuclear energy's safety record in the US or worldwide (compared to natural gas, coal, oil). No chapter on the pros and cons of the latest nuclear energy technology. No estimation of energy demands the US will have when we're past the peak of oil and gas (which may have occured). No talk of eliminating dependency on foreign oil or the need for immediate and massive carbon emission reductions that are ONLY possible--in the short run-- w/ nuclear energy. It's that simple...minded.
Why is this bias so prevalent? James Lovelock in the REVENGE OF GAIA treats this uninformed bias(propaganda?)in some detail in his chapter Sources of Energy. The romantic notion that renewable energy (4% of current world totals) will have significant impact on adequately quelling carbon emissions is the modern day techno-barbarism promoted by these authors. Yes, renewables (geothermal tidal, solar, etc.) WILL rise in use world wide, but to put such faith in renewables when a 60-80% reduction of carbon is needed for survival (according to the EU) is tantamount to deception on a personal and public level that only a J. Lovelock could expose, and so vividly. Again, I refer the reader--especially those with strong anti-nuke feelings-- to Lovelock's latest release to get his rationale for what the stakes are at this stage of our climate history.

Lovelock and many others like myself are simply tired of the 'happy talk' babbling on renewables coming from authors like these as exemplified on page 87:

"Reducing carbon emissions to this extent will require massive changes to the world's carbon-based economy and our current inefficient use of energy. The GOOD NEWS is that many of the required technologies, such as geothermal, solar, and wind power, already exist, and there are many opportunities to improve and expand on their use." Really? Again, what place does nuclear energy, which accounts for 20% of the energy production in the U.S., have in all of this? None for these two. This is absurd.

Of course nuclear energy is not an approved or 'required' technology for these two authors. Contrary to any 'economic barriers' cited by Dow and Downing, the real barrier promulgated by these authors--and the uniformed public--has to do with ignorance, which ends up driving a flawed political agenda for addressing climate change. (And don't the oil execs love that!)

The views in this book express an unscientific bias that fails to even consider the science, risks, and refined technology of current nuclear energy that one finds in Nuttall's book THE NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE (2005). The dramatic carbon decrease from nuclear energy would certainly be the greatest benefit to human kind and planetary survival. Presenting the challenges of addressing climate climate with THEIR "facts" on nuclear energy, Dow and Downing do a disservice to the concerned reader seeking a comprehensive solution. Would these authors support supplanting China's dependence on coal(75% of their total energy pie) with nuclear? Of course not.
I believe, like Lovelock, that the denial of nuclear energy as a player at the table--and the subtle squashing of ANY debate-- will probably lead to the detriment of all life on this planet. That may sound dramatic, but I believe the stakes are truly that high. We should not let authors like Dow and Downing attempt to rationalize away a technology that, apparently, they have little familiarity with.

RATING: 2 1/2 stars. Time for a revision. And a rapid paradigm shift.

This is an excellent book for those wishing to study the issue of climate change from a geographical standpoint. The maps are excellent - they show exactly where evidence is being found to support global warming, what aeas of the world will be most impacted by global warming, and which nations have committed resources to slowing carbon emissions.

It is a visual guide to global warming, giving a very graphic perspective of the earth as a whole. The scientific explanations of the interacting systems of global winds, ocean currents, atmospheric gasses, and how they are being affected by human alterations, are particularly easy to understand because of the clear diagrams and colorful maps.

As an instructor of physical geography, I find this to be an excellent book for the non-scientist to undertand the physical processes and the science of global warming. The detailed yet easy-to-understand maps and diagrams add another dimension to an often dry and theoretical topic.

This book enters the fray with a good overview relative to alternative energy as the answer - but, in my opinion, fails to embrace the "source" of today's dilemma. To precipitate a change in climate - we need a sea-change in the overall interaction of humanity with water. To achieve this, it would be wise for each of us to become conscious of how our daily decisions impact the world within our reach. What products we buy, how we use energy, the examples we set, what we say to others, how we help ease the burden of other life forms we come into contact with - all have an impact on water and the future of life in our biosphere. And, it is the condition of water within our biosphere that will determine the success or failure of our civilization.

My title says it all! This book is easy to read, pleasant to the eyes with its use of color and visuals, and food for the mind. At last, someone has taken pity on individuals who hear about climate change problems, but have not had the facts about it. I think this book is useful for everyone, and can be used in church, school, and living room settings.

Jay S. Southwick

This book is not a correct account of what happened in Rhodesia, but a correct account of what some people in power thought was happening. In some areas Mr. Smith was incredibly wrong, but in others he was very right. The western countries rubber stamp system of de-colonization allowed some very bad rulers to come to power, much worse than Botha or Smith could ever be. In principle I understand what Smith was doing, but he should have agreed to the UK's demands earlier. The only result of this positively is that South Africa learned alot from his mistakes.

As long as you don't believe every single word, this is a great insightful book. I agree with Smith on his take that Rhodesia made a terrible mistake by not joining the Union of South Africa, thereby allowing the 1948 election to happen there.

Regardless what has happened to Zimbabwe/Rhodesia is sad, and the west and later Africa should of never let it happen.

I highly suggest reading "Tomorrow is another country," by Martin Meredith for what I think is the best account of Rhodesia's story.

You've got to hand it to Ian Smith, he doesn't give up. Unfortunately, with Robert Mugabe massacring people left, right and centre people sometimes start to give Smith's arguments and rewriting of history credit they do not deserve.

In the world of Ian Smith as he would have you look at it, hearty Rhodesian farmers held the land in trust for grateful, happy blacks, while putting in place a slow and gentle programme of steady reform which would gradually empower a black population who were clearly not in any position to responsibly govern a great country. Meanwhile, he was brutally sold down the river by the mother country (Britain) who got foolhardy liberal ideas about self-determination and black empoerment.

The reality is somewhat different. Smith's regime has the dubious honour of outdoing Apartheid South Africa in the unpleasantness stakes. Smith's [associates] lived the high life while disenfranchised blacks were used for ... labour and segregated from white society. The failure of post-colonial governments such as Robert Mugabe's has aroused a new debate about the merits of a "benevolent colonialism." Whatever the merits of this argument, it's pretty academic because Smith's government was in no way "benevolent" and could never be held up as one of the better examples of colonial management. In fact, it could be a case study in ... abuse of power. What reforms the Smith regime implemented were hollow and deliberately rigged to make no real difference. Herculean efforts were made to stall the emergence of a well educated, politically aware black middle class which might ultimately challenge white rule. And if any of the "kaffirs" got too uppity they could always be dragged off to a cell to have electrodes attached to their privates until they changed their minds. Of course, this all came back to bite the Smith government in the backside because when it came to a shooting war, even moderate blacks had no real stake in preserving the status quo and little incentive to fall in behind the government.

During the run-up to the negotiations which resulted in the handover to black rule, Smith (who was acknowledged by everyone who dealt with him as a foul mouthed thug) toured London lecturing parties of the hard right faithful on the importance of teching the blacks to "know their place". Willie Whitelaw, not an ungenerous judge of character, described him as possibly the most unpleasant man he'd ever met. Don't be lured by the revisionist nonsense about a paternalistic, essentially benevolent regime. It was nothing of the sort.

Truely the greatest betrayal of a nation by the Western Democratic countries under the influence of the Organisation of African Unity. This book besides being a great read, depicts the struggle of a nation coming to grips with a change in British foreign policy. This change strikes the beginning of the end of a democratic and economically prosperous country. The sad reality of this book is that all of the Rhodesian peoples worst fears have today come true. Ian Smith lays the facts straight. A true leader, and a hard to find honest politician struggling against innumerable odds to keep Rhodesia alive. Unfortunately in the end it was not to be and the now Zimbabwe is a single party dictatorship with horrendous human rights violations, collapsed economy, and a starving people.

If you have any interest in the politics of Southern Africa during the end of British colonialism, this book is for you.

Few books detail the truth about Mugabe's Zimbabwe and the virtual ethnic cleansing of minority communities. Smith, the last minority president of Zimbabwe(then rhodesia) tells the story behind the UDA and his fight for moderation. This excellent book is an insider look at Smith's own understanding of his country and the fate of his nation. Zimbabwe, once a net exporter of grain, is now on the brink of starvation. Smith's book is readable and sheds light on what has been proven by history, the terrible suffering of Zimbabwe's people under the near-fascist dictatorship of Mugabe.

Seth J. Frantzman

Ian Smith was a man ahead of his times. His view of the inept leadership that Africans have offered their continent is correct.

It's too bad that inevitably down the road the so called "rich countries" will have to bail that country, with or without Magabe.

We shouldn't help. Let them lie in the bed they have made.

This is a different kind of book for the average one's out their. But I needed it for my English class. And it arrived on time.

African turmoil is reflected in these stories by Nadine Gordimer. The storytelling is crisp and detached. We are lucky to have so acute an observer of the passing scene. Universality is achieved through the careful attention paid to minute particulars. Reports of artistry and fidelity make points in understated fashion.

A man is rewarded with a house for giving information. When the debriefing is over hardly anyone comes to see him. He was an ordinary colonial child. It was his fate to be detained for five weeks in a dirty cell for merely taking a picture. Later he joins the counter-revolutionary forces. Horror comes slowly. Debriefing doesn't describe methods and experience. His parents may have spoiled him when they let him use a parachute.

A little boy dies on the barbed wire near his house playing a character from Sleeping Beauty. In another story the character doesn't know what day it is because the areas for services, churches and schools, have closed. With a mother gone and having undergone other losses, villagers and members of the family are going away from the land, carrying belongings. On the way through Kruger Park the grandfather, old and slow, is lost. The family does not hope to go back to Mozambique when the war is over. The people in the new village, it is fortunate, speak their language.

A twice-married man goes to a resort. The place seems to glisten with women. He flings stones into the sea and finds a ring. After advertising it in a local paper, he ends up marrying the woman who comes to claim it. The moon in the southern hemisphere seems the wrong way around. A couple rents a room to a young man because their son is to be away for eighteen months. The lodger works in a restaurant. Vera, the daughter, tells her parents that Rad, the lodger, wants to make a meal for them. Vera and Rad become involved with each other. She carries a black box for him on an airplane trip and the plane explodes.

A woman leaves a conference with four members of a youth delegation. She feeds them at her house. It seems their education was interrupted by two years detention. Those two years will never be regained, she surmises. Goats live on a shipwreck island and cause erosion. Through exogamous marriage the islanders change. They are moved. Afterwards the island is used as a weather station. A tour of duty on the island lasts a year. The personnel are subject to problems with insects and mice. Then there are cats on the island. The birds and turtles are disturbed. Young men from the university travel there. They are under orders to shoot the cats.

An Afrikaner farmer shoots a black man. He carries the man in his bakkie to the police station and confesses to the shooting. He had ridden with Lucas, the victim, in a vehicle in which there was a loaded weapon. Driving over a pothole, the weapon had discharged. The ending of this story is a surprise. Teresa took a leave of absence from her job and slept away from home, away from her Swedish husband, in order to find out the circumstances of the jailing of her mother, brother and sister. The husband had suspected an affair. Houseguests at a lodge troop out to witness lions eating a zebra. In the night they see the cubs in the body of the zebra. In daylight scarabs are seen devouring the stomach leavings.

A man, for reason of the indemnity process, is supposed to be free. He walks and takes buses. His friends help. The movement wants him to leave the country but he enjoys being home again. He notes a fellow bus passenger as being out of place. She is someone who would treat her servants well, but place her children in segregated schools. He is now living without consequences, being underground. He finds out the woman's husband is away in Japan and that they are drawn to each other as a couple. There is an interval of closeness in the absence of an exchange of personal identifying information. After several more moves the police find him and he is brought to take a seat in an ongoing trial.

Jump starts off with a complicated short story and follows up with a series of diverse pieces which make you question our society's values. Although she never outright accuses us of anything, she forces us to consider our cultural practices and beliefs in an attempt to make us sensitive to the world around us.

Nadine Gordimer's writing in Jump was amazing. As an English Major, I can honestly say that this book was one of the few that actually had me anxious to turn the page. The way that Gordimer leaves the endings wide open for interpretation has the reader questioning the intent of the author as well as the characters.

N. Gordimer writes with a very gripping style. I found myself engrosed in many of her stories. Some critical and polemic issues are treated with an approach that will leave a reader with many a deep thought.

Not in the same league as Paterson's "Man Eaters of Tsavo" or Corbetts "Man Eaters of Kumaon". Needs more narration on actual Man Eating incidents in the Kruger National Park. Some of the Kruger incidents are old and I have read them in other books.

This is an intriguing book because it's many-layered. On the one hand, it's certainly about man-eating lions. On the other, it's about waves of refugees willing to risk those lions on foot, unarmed and in the middle of the African night, to escape war and poverty. And the question of what you do, officially, in a famous wildlife preserve when your most charismatic tourist attractions are regularly killing and eating desperate political and economic refugees. Answer: You cover it up. You make sure your own tourists are safe (?) and you cover up the rest. There are no clear villains in this book- not the lions, who are just doing what lions do; not the refugees, looking for a viable life; not even the Kruger officials, who have no taste for the wholesale slaughter of animals in their charge. There is one hero, who does what he can in a refreshingly non-official, commonsensical way to help the refugees better their chances of staying alive.

I enjoyed Frump's style and narrative persona; he is no hero himself, out of his element and as scared of lions as anyone else. He's tantalized by the idea of crossing Kruger on foot and at night himself, but honestly relieved when he can find no one willing to guide him. He doesn't offer any easy answers and few judgements.

It's also humbling to realize how utterly helpless human beings still are when separated from our technology and set afoot in the dark among predators we must have known intimately for hundreds of thousands of years.

I found this book to be a disappointment. I hunt in Africa (not South Africa) and am fortunate enough to return on return on a yearly basis. I do not consider myself an expert on Africa by any means, and indeed, I wonder if anyone can really become an expert on so vast a place as Sub-Saharan Africa, an area only slightly smaller than the 48 contiguous United States. This book has a disorganized feel as though it was rushed into print on short notice. It is hard to understand the point the author is trying to make. Africa has components that can be very dangerous at times, although no more dangerous than many other parts of the world including the US. The reality is that everyone tends to manage the dangers they are familiar with as best they can. This is no less true for Africa than for the US and the other Western nations. Many thousands die on the US highways every year, but people by the millions don't think twice about risking death by using them to get where they need to go. The same is true for Africa. If the indigenous Africans need to risk predation or similar dangers to get to where they need to go, they take the risk. Most people around the world manage risk quite well in their daily lives. A few behave recklessly, and they are the ones that tend to get into trouble. As the author finally points out at the end of the book, there are ways to cross Kruger National park without being killed by lions, but there is always a risk of death, just as there is always a risk of death in highly developed industrial societies. (Currently, the real risk of death in Africa is from AIDS.) Finally, his discussions about firearms show a real lack of knowledge. Someone knowledgeable about firearms, and organization of the written word, should have gone over this book before publication.

Mozambican refugees are being eaten alive en masse as they attempt to walk across South Africa's Kruger National Park - home to the notorious man eating lions that are a well-kept secret outside the area. Journalist Robert Frump journeyed to the region in 2002 in search of their story and found a complex social and political mileau instead of the simple tale he had anticipated. THE MAN-EATERS OF EDEN thus becomes as much a story of politics and regional issues as it is a natural history of the park's two thousand lions and the plight of reguees who are their prey.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I found this to be a most intriguing read. At the very start of the book Frump gets your heart racing with the frightening tale of a corpse-spotting in Kruger. Even more gruesome lion-kill accounts create the intermittent suspense that boils up at just the right times throughout this book. That suspense is held together tightly with an honest and well-researched history of the state of game in African park and the plight of the African people who, victims of endless war, must unfairly confront Kruger's lions--the perfect killing machines. What's more, Frump helps the reader grapple with the natural guilt that comes from enjoying the suspense in this tragedy by tackling the sad moral quandry: lion or man. And perhaps best of all, it's a superbly crafted tale that is told in Frump's crips writing style.

Three Stars for an extremely laudable premise, especially considering Africa's renewed efforts at "getting it right". Well written, easy to read piece of work.

However, the writer could have done better by focusing on one sub region at a time. Her extended situation in South Africa allows her a relatively in-depth perception regarding progress and developments within the immediate region.

Her attempt to harness East Africa, West Africa as well as North Africa in this one book drastically watered down what would otherwise have been an extremely great piece of work.

She committed the one grave error most foreign journalists make in reporting on Africa- attempting to lump the entire continent up into one short story. This is regardless of the fact that given the diversity of its societies and economies - a country like Nigeria on its own presents a formidable challenge to analyze in a few paragraphs.

In addition, instead of focusing entirely on supposedly positive news alone, readers will be better served if the writer had given a factual country-by-country report.

If aggregate positive development within the entire continent of Africa can truly be outlined in less than 150 pages, I would not think it worth reporting.

I however think it fair to mention the fact that I lived in West Africa for over 30 years, extensively traveled the continent, still maintain strong ties and am an avid Africa watcher, which somewhat gives me an indepth perception.

This book would probably be a good enough read for the casually interested person.

I had very high hopes for "New News Out of Africa," but I was ultimately disappointed.

For someone who knows nothing about contemporary Africa, the book does provide a good introduction to some of the main issues that Africa faces (the legacy of apartheid, AIDS, corruption, NEPAD, the African Union) and elucidates some bright spots on a troubled continent. However, there are several problems with this book, in my opinion.

1) THE FOCUS ON SOUTH AFRICA
Hunter-Gault focuses disproportionately on South Africa (well over 1/3 of the book). This makes sense since she lives in Johannesburg, but South Africa is hardly representative of Africa as a whole. South Africa has the highest GDP per capita in Africa (higher than even Croatia, Chile, Russia, or Turkey). It has extremely low public debt. And it has a world-class infrastructure. When talking about Africa's future, you cannot compare South Africa to [...] Congo-Kinshasa.

2) NARROW COVERAGE OF AFRICA
The author's overemphasis on South Africa and the book's short length mean that the rest of Africa gets less attention than it merits. The book is 142 pages (before endnotes) and is printed in large font. It is true that chapter 2 (out of 3) jumps all over Africa, giving little snapshots of the situation in many countries (and it is the best chapter). But the author could have written a book twice as long and gone into greater depth. Moreover, if she had divided the book up into a region-by-region analysis, she might have been able to highlight the real disparities across Africa in terms of development and hope for the future.

3) THE "I" FACTOR
Readers of "New News Out of Africa" should know that the book is not just about Africa and its recent history. The book is also substantively about Hunter-Gault and her personal relationship to Africa. It is about her experiences in Africa, what Africa has meant to her as an African-American, and which famous people she has interviewed in Africa. This isn't a criticism per se, but prospective buyers should know what to expect. Rather than such a deeply personal aspect, I was hoping for a more dispassionate analysis.

4) SOURCES
I am one of those people who wants to know where facts come from. And Hunter-Gault cites some amazing facts. So, as I read "New News Out of Africa," I was constantly flipping back to the endnotes, but I was very disappointed to see that most of them come from interviews with Hunter-Gault and from websites.
Many academic scholars (especially historians, but not sociologists) are wary of interviews since they are highly subjective and often not verifiable.
And who verifies the websites used? How do we know that the information provided there is accurate? I generally trust websites like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, but what about other sites?
Some of the information seems to be taken uncritically from these sites. As an example, from one website: She quotes a poem by the "Congoloese poet and politician" Patrice Lumumba. I've heard Lumumba called many things before (postal worker, beer salesman, politician, rebel), but never a poet.
In the endnotes/bibliography, I was surprised not to see page after page of scholarly analyses, monographs, and academic papers. There are some, but far fewer than warranted.

"New News Out of Africa" does provide a very good introduction to important issues; however, the best passages -- those that are the most useful -- are buried among others and are best excerpted. But herein lies the paradox or the problem. The person new to African studies wouldn't know which passages are better than others, and the Africa expert, who does know, doesn't need an introduction.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault provides a snapshot of life in Africa, from the perspective of someone who has lived and breathed news coverage on the continent for decades. Yes, the book is heavy on South Africa, but as the powerhouse of Africa and the launching point for most of her work, it makes the book more personal and anecdotal - a plus from my perspective.

She is a journalist questioning her industry's poor coverage of the continent -- that is the heart of the book. It is not meant to be an academic book or the definitive word on Africa. New News presents a moment in time. She addresses the sad fact that most Westerners have a severely skewed perspective of the continent, largely due to doomsday media coverage.

New News was a modest attempt to give some balance to what Hunter-Gault calls the four D's of the African Apocalypse. Yes, I would like to read more, but was grateful for the 100-some pages of honest, first-hand analysis.

Veteran journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault hits the nail on journalism's head with her latest book, New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa's Renaissance. Hunter-Gault, who up until recently was the Johannesburg Bureau Chief for CNN, gives her take on media coverage of Africa. Half of the book is dedicated to her work experience in both pre- and post-apartheid South Africa, while the rest of the book examines what she calls the renaissance occurring in postcolonial Africa with the help of enterprising African journalists. If one only depended on Western media for news about the continent, they would conclude that the only things happening in Africa are war, famine and AIDS. This
Afro-pessimism is further compounded by patronizing celebrities and Live 8 concerts that claim to be "saving" Africa. While she agrees that atrocities, such as the HIV pandemic and the Darfur genocide should be covered, Hunter-Gault feels that this should be balanced out with the new news about the politicians and activists making a positive impact on the atrocities. "Recalling the old/bad news and putting it in context must also be a part of our new news mission if there is to be any hope of the past instructing the future," she says. Hunter-Gault cites the rise in democratic elections, and, thus, more democratic leaders around the continent as part of the new news. The reporter also recognizes being an African American and a woman has also helped her to "come in right" or fairly report news about Africa. A must read for all journalism students and those who care about Africa's future.

NEW NEWS shows us that there is, in fact, good news coming out of Africa.

This new book by Charlayne Hunter-Gault provides a lively overview of the political, economic and social progress occurring in many African countries in recent years.

Hunter-Gault, who has lived in South Africa for the past decade, personalizes the narrative with her own firsthand stories as a black female American journalist covering African events for CNN, NPR and the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour. She frequently contrasts her African experiences with her life in the pre-Civil Rights American South. (As a young woman in 1961, Hunter-Gault famously integrated the University of Georgia amid racial taunts, personal threats, and student riots.) Hunter-Gault's personal anecdotes are perhaps the most compelling part of NEW NEWS.

For those seeking to understand where Africa has been in recent years, and where one hopes it will continue to go, NEW NEWS is an excellent start.

"The Other Side of Silence" is one of the bleakest novels you'll ever read. It is essentially the story of one woman's unending suffering and misery. With each new stop in her life comes a new abuse. An orphan, she shuffles from one person to the next and almost always encounters someone who wants to exploit her. Everything is taken away from this woman, Hanna, including, at one point, her last name. When she finally, briefly finds love, that too is cruelly stripped from her.

I'll admit, despite some obvious flaws, I found Hanna's story engrossing and compelling. I really felt for this woman and became involved in her tragic life. My complaint, though, is that Brink's characters are too black and white -- either "evil" or "good." Catholics take a particular beating here (they are either rapists, sadists or hypocrites) and men do, too. It seems in this world that you are either malevolent or an angel. There are also too many cliche scenarios (mixed in with the more original and unique turns in the story they feel quite clunky).

All of this refers to the first half of the book. Part two of the novel takes an entirely different direction. Hanna, with a young orphan (Hanna all over again) and a ragtag army, sets out on some lofty revenge. I found this section of the book highly misguided and almost ruinous. It severely damages the book. Brink seems unsure himself about Hanna's rampage. He questions exactly why they're doing it and if it's a good decision, and he starts to write the officers they kill as nothing more than foolish kids, which makes Hanna seem just as cruel as the people we're supposed to be happy to see die.

The whole thing feels absurd anyway. One attack by Hanna's army on a fort is laughable. As the men of the army ambush officers in the desert, the women start to knock off men one by one at the fort, right out of "Ten Little Indians," and as men keep getting killed after going off with the women and the women keep firing shots into the air toward the desert as signs, you have to wonder exactly how long it will take the German officers to figure out that this party that has just arrived -- and brought with it sickness and death -- is not friendly. The whole episode is like a bad sitcom.

The first part of the book centers on Hanna's time in an orphanage and her stay in Frauenstein, a massive edifice in the African desert. I found her history -- violent and depressing as it was -- fascinating; Hanna becomes very real to you. You do want her to take the young orphan, Katja, and get away from Frauenstein, and briefly the book keeps pace by introducing a rather scary missionary when they leave, but as soon as this army forms and Hanna incessantly tries to justify what she's doing, the book falls flat on its face. And the ending is utterly contradictory and wholly unsatisfying.

I give the book four stars because for me it is really two books: Hanna's history, and the tepid revenge conclusion that has no real need to be here. Without the latter -- and with a real finish, in which Hanna saves Katja -- it would have been nearly perfect. But even as it currently is -- mightily flawed -- it is still worth reading.

As a student of South Africa, I found The Other Side of Silence a fascinating addition to my understanding of the country's early colonization. The language is spare, important when mutilation is central to the storyline. I read it twice, the second revealed nuances missed during the first. On my recommendation, my book club will read this ...

Mr Brink tells the haunting story of Hanna X which takes place at the beginning of the 20th century in the German colony of what was then called Deutsch-Südwestafrika (German South-West Africa), now Namibia. It was then the custom that the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft sent hundreds of women and girls to Africa "to assuage the need of men desperate for matrimony, procreation or an uncomplicated" love-making.
Hanna X, resident of a forlorn place called Frauenstein in the middle of nowhere in the desert, contemplates her face in the mirror. Tufts of blond hair hacked off with a kitchen knife, part of her right ear is missing leaving a dark hole, she has only part of the left eyebrow left, her face is criss-crossed with scars and most frightening of all, she has no tongue, only a small black stub, far back. The sound she utters is Ahhhhh... How did Hanna X undergo such hideous mutilations and who inflicted them to her?
And so the narrator traces back the harrowing tale of this poor orphan back to her childhood in Bremen. She grew up in an institution called the Little Children of Jesus where her books were confiscated by Frau Agathe, where she was "touched" by Pastor Ulrich and beaten regularly. Hanna found refuge with her teacher, Fräulein Braunschweig, who let her read stories like "Die Leiden des Jungen Werther" or that of Jeanne D'Arc.
Her years in service were also marked by desolation. With the Klatts for instance. Frau Hildegard was a mean-spirited woman and Herr Dieter had to be "serviced" for a few Pfennig. So Hanna decided to apply with the Kolonialgesellschaft and was granted passage to Africa by Frau Sprandel who dismissed her with the premonitory warning not to "expect too much of her palm trees". It is on board the Hans Woermann that Hanna experienced love and tenderness for the first and only time in her life with a girl called Lotte. It was after their arrival in Africa, during the train journey which was to take them to Windhoek, that Hanna was confronted with Hauptmann Heinrich Böhlke and the outcome of this encounter was what Hanna now sees in the mirror in Frauenstein: a monstrously disfigured creature...
Such humiliation and dismemberment was inflicted to her not because of anything she had done but simply because she was a woman. From then on, it is hatred that drives everything she does "as inexorable as the desert sun". This hatred is a form of liberation for Hanna as she begins her long journey with Katja towards the confrontation with the man or men who turned her into something "like out of hell". As the two women set off in the desert towards Windhoek, it is to keep an appointment with destiny...
"The Other Side of Silence" is probably the best novel ever written about the horrors of colonialism in Africa. Some passages in the book remind the reader of what happened during the Holocaust. Mr Brink has rightly been compared to the greatest writers of our times like Solzhenitsyn, Garcia Marques or Peter Carey.

No, I'm not a raging feminist who critiques all books on this subject but this does reasonably explain this one's faults. It's always a risk writing from a character's perspective who is of the opposite sex. Even an accomplished writer like André Brink can't make it float.

Now that I've stated this, I admit that it would be hard to give examples without giving away the whole story line. For those who read the book, what happens to Gisela bothers me. These are not the actions a mother would take. Also, what was Hanna looking for in Africa? What did she really want? She never ponders marriage, children, pursuits of women in her age. At least say why or why not and what alternatives were offered to her in those days (not many, I expect).

The only sympathetic male character was introduced in the last few pages. Otherwise, they're all evil.

It's true that the book gets so gory that you stop caring. It numbs you after intially being so shockingly horrible. With the holes in the plot, it starts to ring very untrue and unbeliveable. That was pretty compicated surgery, preformed on a train?? What happens with her little band bother me (only Katja and Hanna left?). How were they able to eat in the desert? The first fort takeover was almost silly. You'd think the German soldiers were the dumbist on the planet. I could go on and on...

He's still a great writer but "A Dry White Season" was much better. My South African cousin gave it to me, saying that it could describe the situation in her country better than she could. I couldn't bring myself to watch the film. The injustice that Brink pulled off there was so real. He lost that with this book.

Am I a hypocryte if I go out and buy the sequel? He says he'll write about Katja's child. I think it's a testiment to his writing. Too bad his talent is wasted on a feeble plot.

And she says it in a big way.
This novel takes place in the early years of the 20th Century, among the German-occupied colonies of South-West Africa. From her earliest years as an orphan, Hanna X, the main character in Brink's novel, suffers incredible amounts of abuse. First off, there is the unreasonable strictness of Frau Agathe to deal with. Beatings are a regular thing at the orphanage "because it is a Christian place where evil will not be tolerated." Then there is the lecherous priest, Pastor Ulrich, who violates her physically and spiritually. Then, a series of transitional periods where the young Hanna is shipped from one place to another, and these experiences always result in trauma, disappointment, disillusionment. Her life becomes characterized by alienation, loneliness, pain, loss, and denigration.
Throughout all of this, Hanna hangs on to a fleeting childhood memory, something she refers to as "The Time Before"... in which she remembers meeting an Irish girl named Susan at the beach of the Weser in Bremen. Susan gave Hanna a shell, and told her to listen to its inner sounds. Hanna keeps this shell, and for her it comes to represent the "silence which she carries deep within her, from the lost time before she ever arrived at the orphanage..."
When Hanna hears that hundreds of women are regularly being shipped from Hamburg to the remote African colonies to serve as wives for the men stationed there... she signs up. What could be worse than what she is presently experiencing?
She arrives at Swakopmund, and ends up at an extremely remote secular nunnery known as Frauenstein.
Here (and on the way here) she will learn that there are places worse than the orphanage. Much worse.

What follows is a very dark story. Do not be mistaken, this is a story difficult to read for its brutal depictions of torture and violence, but written in a style and with an imagery that is evocative, unmistakingly vivid, even beautiful.
However, this is in no way a beautiful story where all is resolved at the end. Where justice has its day, where all is made right. One ought to be prepared for this fact.

It shows the most absolutely horrid aspects of human nature, and always face-up, in the full light of the hot sun. Not only are the perpetrators of crimes against Hanna (the heroine) shown in all of their shameless ghastliness, but she herself becomes nearly as brutal in the latter half of the book. There comes a time when Hanna says "No more" and understandably, we want her to succeed in her plans for vengeance against the greatest of crimes that have been commited against her. She assembles a ragtag band of vigilantes, those who have suffered injustices of their own, and together they set out on a quest to reclaim dignity, with Hanna as their (mute) leader.

This is a difficult book, but only because of its subject matter. The way it is written makes me want to read more by this wonderful author.