South Africa Books

I generally enjoy historical and military fiction, and really liked Foden's first book (The Last King of Scotland), however this novel of the Boer War (which, according to Foden, was rushed to publication in order to coincide with the centenary of the war) did little to either entertain, educate, or move me. To be sure, the war-which bridged the 19th and 20th centuries-served both as another signal that the empire was dying, and as a portent of the horrors of World War I, and is thus noteworthy. Unfortunately, Foden's meticulous recreation of the three month siege of the town of Ladysmith, in which about 14,000 British soldiers and 5,000 civilians (of which half were Africans and several hundred, Indian) were subject to daily artillery barrages from huge Boer guns, suffers from an overwhelming number of characters and points of view. There were countless memoirs and histories of the siege, and one gets the feeling that Foden felt the need to cram every perspective into his book, which was apparently inspired by letters written by his great-grandfather, who was a trooper in the war. Indeed, those who've read Thomas Packenham's massive history, The Boer War, will recognize where certain scenes in the novel spring from.

The story is very loosely arranged around Irish hotelier Leo Kiernan's daughter Bella, and her alternating affections amidst the siege But that's only a small slice of the pie, and is rather clumsily portrayed to boot. The real story is about life in the midst of a siege, with all its familiar aspects: rationing, boredom, terror, filth, martial law, blood and guts, and so on. Chronicling all this are a good fifteen different characters, including fictional creations such as Bella, her sister, her father, various soldiers, a Portuguese barber, a Boer doctor, an early motion picture recorder, a Zulu and his wife and son, and real-life figures such as a young Winston Churchill, British journalists Nevinson and George Stevens, and an Indian stretcher bearer by the name of Gandhi. The book runs back and forth amongst these different perspectives, skimming lightly on each before a heavy-handed transition takes the reader to the next scene. None is fully-fleshed out, and Foden's interest in displaying the siege as emblematic of a sea-change in British imperial history leads his characters to speechify. The pronouncements of Churchill and Gandhi are particularly leaden. The resulting stew is an altogether wooden and unsatisfying one, and unlikely to enrich anyone's understanding of the events-although it does convey the sense of an aging empire muddling into quicksand.

Do not be misled by the jacket cover-a photograph of a beautiful young woman in Victorian dress gazing wide-eyed at an idyllic background scene and suggesting a romantic interlude. The jacket blurb itself refers to a "young woman who finds love and freedom in the midst of a devastating war" and goes on to suggest that this is her story.

Perhaps the publisher is being deliberately ironic here. Ladysmith, South Africa, was the site of one of the most horrific and bloody episodes in the whole sad story of the Boer War, a war that was waged between England and Holland for control of another country's riches and in which thousands of native, as well as foreign, people met unnecessary and unimaginably gory ends. And Foden describes this horror without reservation. I can assure you, "love story" is not what you will remember or care about here.

Foden's characters come from the British ruling class, British journalists (including Winston Churchill), British and Irish regiments, British settlers and expatriates, Indians (including Mahatma Gandhi), native families displaced by the war, and, of course, the Boers. The reader quickly becomes caught up in the lives of individuals from each of these groups, feeling genuine sympathy for many of them and mourning the tragedies which befall them all as the siege and the skirmishes continue unabated. Like the siege itself, there's a hopelessness to each of their stories, which Foden carries to their conclusions (in some cases at the end of World War II) by appending a final section aptly entitled "Monologues of the Dead." This is a beautifully wrought story of unimaginable carnage.

Foden's The Last King of Scotland was an unusual novel, and so well-written, that it was to be feared his second would fall short - such is not the case. He has produced a rip-roaring account of the seige of the town of Ladysmith during the Boer War of 1899, filled with memorable characters both fictional and real (Churchill, Ghandi, Buller, Kitchner). The harrowing account of the suffering of civilians and soldiers during the seige is unforgettably brought to life. Although described as a love story, the romance element plays a secondary role in this gripping historical novel. The writer's style may appear to be hit or miss at first --so many characters, so many differing viewpoints --but the reader comes to understand that the very uncertainity of the style is a mirror reflection of the uncertainty of the lives and times of the people involved. I thought that the last section, "Monologues of the Dead", was a most fitting end for a really good book.

THIS IS AN INTERESTING READ, PARTICULARLY FOR SOMEONE INQUISITIVE ABOUT HISTORY AND AT TIMES SITUATIONS LEADING UP TO WORLD WAR II. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND SEEMS ACCURATE AND THE CHARACTERS REAL. FOR AWHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK THE PACE OF THE STORY SLOWS SOMEWHAT, BUT THAT IN ITSELF BLENDS WITH THE ACCOUNT OF THE LONG SIEGE OF THE SMALL SOUTH AFRICAN TOWN OF LADYSMITH BY THE BOER FORCES IN 1899. SOME HISTORICAL CHARACTERS ARE REFERRED TO INCLUDING LIEUTENANT WINSTON CHURCHILL, GENERAL BULLER AND OTHERS, BUT THE STORY FOCUSES MAINLY ON THE INTERACTION OF BIRTISH SOLDIERS AND LOCAL TOWNSPEOPLE AND THE WAY THEY DEAL WITH THE SIEGE OF THER TOWN AND WITH THEMSELVES. EACH SETTLER HAS A DIFFERENT STORY AND REASON FOR BEING IN THAT PLACE AT THAT TIME. ALL ARE WAITING FOR THE RELIEF OF LADYSMITH, IF IT COMES. THIS NOVEL IS A TYPE OF FORCAST FOR SOME ASPECTS OF MODERN WAR AND SIEGE SITUATIONS THAT ARE PLAYED OUT TO-DAY.

This is a fascinating topic and some useful data is provided, but that is all. Surprisingly, this book was given quite an appropriate review in the journal, Ethnomusicology. Its style is an example of what is wrong with academic writing today. Unfortunately, the publishing establishment tends not to notice that such books are intentionally written so as to be inpenetrable to readers. Academics write this way to avoid criticism. Since nobody can tell what exactly they mean, nobody can challenge them or prove them wrong on any points. Some readers feign complete understanding of such books in order not to seem ignorant. Presses should not exascerbate the problem further by printing such things.

Quite simply, I feel compelled to write a review of this book because of the rather harsh slandering it received from the previous critic. I agree that there are many academic books out there that are ultimately filled with nothing but trendy, pretentious jargon, a mere jumble of mixed and incoherent messages. To throw this book into that category means the reader simply hasn't taken the time to decipher or just doesn't understand the rather complex, and in my opinion, extremely well-thought out and important arguments made in this book. Sometimes books can be tough reading; this one deserves your patience!
I can sum up the main argument in a few sentences: globalization is typically seen as a rupture with the past, as a fundamentally new process. Authors like Arjun Appadurai tend to link this process with the rise of electronic media, which has the ability to create new kinds of communities. Erlmann, on the other hand, sees globalization as more of a continuation of the 19th-century than a fundamental break with the past. He thinks that to understand the complex layers of signification which occur in the 'global imagination' today (such as in world music), one must ultimately return to an examination of the colonial period, especially to Enlightenment thought and the constructions of identity within European culture at that time - constructions which ultimately depended on the colonizing experience itself. Thus, in my view, it is rather ingenious that the first half of the book focuses on the tours of two 19th-century African choirs, and the second half of the book on Paul Simon's Graceland - he demonstrates for us the continuity of ideas born in the modernist era (the concept of the panorama, the Great Exhibitions, biography, travel writing) with what the world music movement of the 1980s. But he does far more than just claim Paul Simon is resuscitating the same old, colonialist predicament - he examines in much detail the history of isicathamiya, and displays how the Graceland album both does and does not mark a change from its traditional performance practice (for example, isicathamiya is seen as a genre that thrives on throwing otherwise disparate messages and lyrical images together to create new meaning, and the song 'Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes' continues that tradition, when Ladysmith Black Mambazo's views of womanhood are juxtaposed next to Paul Simon's). The upshot: this book should be required reading for ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, and those interested in post-colonial studies and globalization.

In what he describes as a "topography of global culture," Erlmann attempts to discet the global fictions of modern statehood, national identity, history, subjectivity, the arts etc. showing how they are not representations of fixed realities, or one sided determinations but rather processes that take form and develop through what he calls the global imagination, "the means by which people shift the contexts of their knowledge and endow phenomena with significance beyond their immediate realm of personal experience." The book examines how cross cultural interaction between different senses of modernity over the past 100 years have shaped the constitutive categories of race, class and gender. The book ultimately argues that the cultural topography of a "world that is now truly one" is based on the interdependency of people the world over. Erlmann explores the workings of this global imagination through two examples of interaction between South Africa, England, and the United States. The first of these is a tour of two African chiors in the 1890s, and the second is the work of Ladysmith Black Mambazo after 1986. Erlmann does not attempt a historical or narrative continuity between or within the two examples, but rather examines aspects of each as texts within their specific political and historical context. The author gets at the complexities of each example from many angles, examining the significance of biography, dance, composition, politics, religion etc. The diversity of focus makes the book read somewhat like a collection of articles, but Earlmann speaks authoritatively on every page. The value I find in the book is how assumptions of race, identity and authenticity (among others) are examined in context of global interaction and change with a result that is much more vialbe than many essentialist ideas of the colonial encounter and African/ African American music. Erlmann also gives emphasis to agency, a focus that is denied in too many other works in contemporary theory. The book is written for the academic audience, but should find wide interest outside of Antropology and Ethnomusicology.

I see the earlier reviewer's point about the book's being impenetrable. However, this leads me to believe that the reader read the first 80 pages and gave up. This is a tragedy, as the first 80 pages, while incredibly complex and filled with references to numerous thinkers, is resolved and made clear throughout the rest of the book.

To better explain, Erlmann views the 20th Century's globalization as more a continuation of trends in the 19th Century. Additionally, he discusses the communication and mutual dependence that Europe and its Others had with one another - indeed their very identities were defined through one another.

The first part of his book uses the tours of two African choirs to England and the US respectively to illustrate his views on 19th century colonialism, and then turns to Ladysmith Black Mambazo's involvement in Paul Simon's Graceland and beyond for Part II to illustrate the continuities. When he reaches Part II, a number of the complex, seemingly imprenetrable thoughts of Part I come into focus; it is brilliant scholarship, but requires patience.

That said, I would only suggest this book to people who are studying South African music - it's probably a bit too dense for anyone thinking of reading it for interest or pleasure.

I have to say that the first book in this series was better than this one because the characters blended well together, and in this one, the main girl character annoyed me, she was bratty and seemed like today's teenager. It did have some good qualities, like action & adventure.

I must say I was looking forward to this book by Jack Cavanaugh, after I had read the first book, The Pride and the Passion, which I highly recommend. I was a bit disappointed though, with the sequel, because it starts out slow, and is slow through half of the book. Then it picks up and is a good read, a page-turner, with more character development, and growing. I like the time period of the Afrikaaners, since this was one of the first series to cover the era in South Africa. Don't get me wrong, I liked this book, but gave it four stars for its slow start! By the end of the book, I was looking forward (again) to the next one.

The descendants of the van der Kemps struggle against British control and warring tribes. Christiaan van der Kemp is a peacemaker, but few others share his views.
His daughter, Sina, has a big crush on the neighbor boy, Henry Klyn. Sina's good friend, Karel, advises her against pursuing the relationship with Henry. . . . And Sina advises Karel against the relationship he is pursuing with Deborah van Aardt. Karel and Sina, despite their differing opinions, have been friends for most of their lives.
Jama, a descendant of Ding (the van der Kemp's slave in the first book), is struggling to find his place among the Dutch Afrikaner, or Boers as they were commonly called. He doesn't feel accepted by anyone but the van der Kemps, and he longs to marry, but finds no one he can relate with. So, at the urgings of the Xhosa tribe king, Jama joins with their ranks.
After the Xhosas attack the Boers and leave the houses decimated, the van der Kemps, along with others, decide to leave South Africa and seek land by a peaceable arrangement with the Zulus. Through hardship and heartache, the van der Kemps are victorious only by the Lord.

It did start slowly, but I still found it interesting. Besides, the rest of the book more than makes up for it! There was one part I especially liked--the imagery was so gripping and vivid (and scary, particularly if you're reading it at night like I was), but I won't give it away. =)

I must say I was looking forward to this book by Jack Cavanaugh, after I had read the first book, The Pride and the Passion, which I highly recommend. I was a bit disappointed though, with the sequel, because it starts out slow, and is slow through half of the book. Then it picks up and is a good read, a page-turner, with more character development, and growing. Don't get me wrong, I liked this book, but gave it four stars for its slow start! By the end of the book, I was looking forward (again) to the next one.

As a South African living abroad for an extensive time now, it was a lovely homesick journey with Dervla Murphy!

I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of this book while in South Africa last summer. I've read Murphy's books before, but this is my favorite.

In her own nonjudgemental, trusting, and humorous style, Murphy travels to South Africa twice in the book. I will never forget the section of the book where she describes the first all-race elections in the history of the country. Since I was traveling in South Africa at the time, the book took on even greater significance. Ms. Murphy, as always, traveled places where no one expected her to go, and her description of her experience is priceless. Want to read two books about South Africa? Read "A Long Walk To Freedom," by Nelson Mandela, and this book. What a fantastic trip you'll take, whether you visit South Africa or not.

Dervla bikes down and up South Africa before, during and after the 1994 vote for majority rule. Her physical perseverance energized me, and her observations were fascinating. As in most of her other works, Dervla has the courage to be inconsistent in her views, and reveals her own positive and negative aspects with refreshing honesty. -- Dervla Addict.

South Africa is a wonderful country and I had the great fortune to live and work there for two years. During this time I travelled thousands of miles, saw much of the country, and met a great many people from all backgrounds. It is a complex country full of contradictions that can assault one's sensibilities. There can be few other countries in the world where the destiny of its citizens is so intricately linked to its immediate history.

The author of this book recognises that the only way to understand a country is to see it for oneself. Bravely she set out to find the answers to some of the questions that South Africa poses by travelling around it on a bicycle. To some extent she succeeds, her reportage surrounding the assassination of Chris Hani has some merit, but overall I was left with a sense of great unease. She establishes her credentials as an admirer of the ANC early on and is named Comrade Noxolo (which means peace in Khosa) by her `minders'; a gesture which she describes as marking her `acceptance as a reliable friend, a person with the right attitude'. At no time, however, does she question the role of her minders as her journey continues and how she may have been manipulated in crucial sections of this book.

Her views about the redistribution of clothes from a hijacked laundry van are disappointing (failing `to see it as either criminal or immoral') and her Robin Hood like attitude to this incident is not extended to the theft of her own property later in the book in the form of her beloved bicycle. Her trip to prison to visit those on remand awaiting trial for the possession of automatic weapons is disturbing. The closest she comes to condemning the possession of these unlawful weapons is to inform us that she has another view that is `beside the present point' from agreeing with her minders that they should be retained for future possible use.

Later in the book her attitude begins to change. She becomes more cynical about her associates' intentions, but by then her personal opinions have long ago clouded the objectivity of her observations. Maybe a travelogue is allowed to be subjective but I can't help thinking that if it is then it should avoid dubious political observations and concentrate on describing the journey itself. It is this which seriously detracts from the overall value of the book. `South From The Limpopo' goes some way to describing this most interesting of countries but fails to find the real South Africa.

I preferred this book over some of the others that I bought because it had photos to associate with the places. The Bradt book might give more detail, but I am the type of person who finds specific places to travel to by the pictures. And, even though the pictures are great, they dont even compare to the views of the places in reality.
Great Book!

i want to review the history of uganda, take note on the people, traditions, various places.

I wouldn't normally be so harsh on a book, but this one was really bad in almost every respect. First, there is no indication at all in this book of how expensive Kampala has become over the last decade, so I ended up taking not enough money and had to have my parents wire me cash over Western Union. Not that the book would have helped in that regard, of course, because there is no information in the guidebook about Western Union or how to get cash to Uganda.

In a section at the back of the book there is a list of hotels with, of course, no prices listed, and, while the authors list theatres, tour operators and even libraries, they conveniently leave out restaurants. There is also an extensive list of wildlife species although, without any pictures to help you identify the animals, I don't know how this is supposed to help anyone. In the language section there is a helpful English-Kiswahili section, which is nice except for the fact that Luganda is much more widely spoken in Kampala, Entebbe and central Uganda than Kiswahili.

Additionally, there is a massive lack of good maps here: the map of Kampala is so small it doesn't even cover the centrally located Rubaga cathedral and the map of Uganda lacks so much detail that it is almost impossible to use it for driving. (This in a country where street signs are almost non-existent.) These bad maps are inexcusable in any guidebook but even more so here where the authors have inserted large numbers of full-page color photographs.

Finally, the binding on the book started falling apart only weeks after I purchased it. All in all, a really bad guidebook.

Seriously. If I could have left the other 4 books - including Museveni's Sowing the Mustard Seed - behind, I surely would have. Well organized and researched, this title kept me informed and entertained far beyond my expectations. Though I'm not often one for juicy four-color photos in my guide books, even those were welcome. Enjoy this great guide and enjoy your trip!

Ian Knight is probably the preeminent authority on Zulu History, and this is a fascinating account of a series of 10 different battles that occurred over the course of 70 years, featuring Zulus against the Boers, Zulus against the British, and Zulus against Zulus. Probably the best known Zulu battle is Rorkes' Drift, but that incident really deserves its own book, and Knight and other authors have already done so (see Ian Knight's "Campaign Series 42, Rorkes' Drift 1879", for a good overview, but he also has done a more thorough analysis of that battle in another book). If you want a more detailed study of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 then there is no shortage of other good books to read, but in terms of the development and showcasing of Zulu warfare after Shaka and into the early 20th Century, then this is an excellent and exciting piece of work.

A useful and informative introduction to the Zulu wars. Several major battles are covered in depth, and the general trends of the war explained. Overall tactics for the Zulu Nation are discussed in some length, however the same treatment is not given to the British side. The reader is left with the overall impression that the main tactic of the Zulu Nation was to field vastly superior numbers, and without this there was little chance of victory. There is a lack of detail on the weapons and equipment and dress used by each side which would have been an important and interesting addition

An interesting and informative account of the Zulus' greatest battles is, unfortunately, not as comprehensive as it could have been. While Knight has, once again, done his homework (his accounts of the battles of Thukela and Blood River are vivid)there are some thrilling battles in earlier Zulu history which have been afforded little attention. For instance, the battle of kwaGqokli hill, which featured the young Shaka leading his men against the powerful Ndwandwe of Zwide kaLanga, lives in many an imagination as the first reckoning of the great Zulu empire. But while there are valid reasons not to include the aforementioned clash, the battle of izinDololwane hills, which saw Shaka, with the help of his white allies, shatter the powerful Ndwandwe kingdom once and for all, surely merits an inclusion. That aside, the book is typical of Knight: colourful, interesting, objective, factual.

This book was interesting and informative. Though, I do believe that the foreword and the afterword could have been omitted since they were basically a general overview of bad government in all but the Western World. I recommend this book to any one who wants to learn more about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.

Martin Meredith's COMING TO TERMS is a well constructed description of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa and forces nations to look at themselves and consider the fact that their actions of today will linger on forever.

This book started out as just a piece for my research paper on South African Aparthied, but it soon turned into one of my favorites! It disturbed me a bit to hear about some of the autrocities, but I attribute that to a good description by the author and good research. It was an excellent source for my paper, and I enjoyed reading it as well. I don't recommend it for everyone because it drones in some parts, but it is a good read for those interested in Apartheid, learning more about Sout Africa, and the traveller.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have read in years. Mda skillfullly evokes the tensions in contemporary South Africa for blacks caught between the tug of Western, technological culture and their identity in long-standing traditions. The story is given added substance by Mda's recounting the history of similar tensions from the nineteenth century, thus creating deep emotions that propel the characters. The story mixes family feuds, spats between the sexes, and sober deliberations about community versus individual choices, all told with a level of humor that underscores rather than undermines the importance of these issues for South Africa today.

The novel Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda, tells a tale of rural integration and religious conflict of a village in post colonial South Africa. The novel reveals the metamorphosis of South Africans through an economic, social, and cultural lens in the 1990s. Africa is no long the primitive continent solely known for its vast concoction of indigenous cultures. Instead, it is an emerging economy with its people adjusting to modernity and the how the lives of many Africans coexists with the remaining colonial influences. This struggle for change and progress, versus preservation of the land and traditions, becomes the pinnacle feud between the Believers and Unbelievers. By folding different generations of stories with each character of the book, Heart of Redness becomes alive with vivacity.
The story begins by introducing the Middle Generation that was lost to the colonial conflicts. Because of this great disturbance in African culture and history, the feud between the Believers and the Unbelievers drove the lives of many African decedents apart for decades. Camagu, the main character of the book, returns to South Africa for first time after being exiled to the United States for 30 years, finds himself to be a stranger in a land that he once called home. Camagu's character presented the readers an unbiased and western perspective as if the reader can experienced this story first handed.
After being educated in the west and earned a repertoire of outstanding professions, Camagu's knowledge and experience were almost nonfunctional in South Africa. For most jobs that he went looking for, he was overqualified. However, because he was not in the "elite" circle of the Aristocrats of the Revolution, he could not get into the jobs that would really allow him to make a difference. Discouraged by the rejection job after job, the discontent Camagu was ready to pack up his suit case and leave Africa once again. However, after an incidental meeting with the strange but beautiful NoRussia, Camagu begin his journey to Qolorha-by-the-sea, where he would hope that he can reunite with her. After his arrival, he learns the rich history of the momentous feud between the Believers and the Unbelievers, and the prophetess Nogqawuse "who deceived the amaXhosa nation" into famine and strife (p35). Subsequently, he finds himself intertwined with the grudge and livelihood of those who resides there.
The confrontation between the Believers and Unbelievers began when the prophetess Nogqawuse told the people of amaXhosa to slay all of their cattle for a new beautiful life awaits them. Although cattle slaying seem like a self-destructive idea, (which it consequently proved to be so regardless), the reasoning behind such request was logical for a lot of native Africans. When the Europeans brought over their cows that were infected with lungsickness, it plagued the African cows and caused devastating effects. Those who obeyed the prophecy and slain their cows became the Believers, and those who did not, became the Unbelievers. And because of this prophecy, the feud begins.
This prophecy drove ideologies, families, and friends apart. Sisters were against brothers, and mothers were against fathers. The disagreement branch out to other issues beyond the prophecy. The two twin brothers, Twin and Twin-Twin, was presented by the author to show how this prophecy can drive people apart regardless of how close they once were. When Twin became a Believer and Twin-Twin became an Unbeliever, the brothers broke apart. They each led their own mission in life to seek out their own destinies and fight against the others' ideologies.
Twin-twin was the original Unbeliever. He refused to slaughter his cattle when Nogqawuse gave the orders that the amaXhosa should destroy all their herds. He said the prophetess was a liar who had been sought by white people to destroy the black race. Today the village is full of Twin-Twin's progeny, because not many of his children died when famine attacked the land after Nogqawuse's prophecies failed (P62).

The Unbelievers thought the prophecy to be an absolute fraud. Because of this, unbelieving became a form of religion almost, as believing was. The main ideology behind the Unbelievers was that progress is necessary for prosperity to occur. The only way to do so was through the help of foreign investment and the building of a casino where it will provide jobs for the people. That way, there is a steady flow of income. In a conversation between Camagu and the leader of the Unbelievers, Bhonco, he discusses the Unbeliever's side with Camagu in regards to why building a Casino is beneficial for the people of Qolorha. "`We want developers to come and build the gambling city that will bring money to this community. That will bring modernity to our lives, and will rid us of our redness'" (p92). The redness discussed here, depicts the struggle and conflict of the African people that had endured over the centuries of colonial conquests, and the hardship that came with it.
"The Unbelievers are moving forward with the times. That is why they support the casino and the water-sports paradise that the developers want to build. The Unbelievers stand for civilization" (p71). A progressive and utilitarian view of the optimistic future is depicted here by the Unbelievers. Although the idea behind casino building and its economic benefits for the people may seem like a great idea, however, "it may not be the boon the Unbelievers think it will be" (p103). With the construction of casino building, "few men from the village, if any, will get the Jobs. Construction companies come with their own workers who have the necessary experience... Of course, a small number of jobs is better than no jobs at all. But if they are at the expense of the freedom to enjoy the sea and its bountiful harvests and the wood and the birds and the monkeys... then those few jobs are not really worth it" (p103). This rebuttal drives home the Believer's values and moral ethics to be more agreeable and sympathetic to accept. The author first seems to allow the readers to side with the Unbeliever's arguments. Ideally, this progress only seems logical and realistic for the future of Qolorha. Nevertheless, throughout different occasions in the novel, Mda reminds us time after time, that the social and moral consequences presented by the Believers in regards to the building of the casino, may not be as advantageous as it seems.
For the Believers, the failed prophecy is hindered on the shoulders of the Unbelievers as they were the once who didn't slay their cattle, causing the prophecy to fail. However, if the casino was to be built in Qolorha, Africans will have to adapt to the lifestyle of private property and ownership. This conflicts with the Africans who once knew the earth to be a collective bountiful garden of food. With the building of the casino, the sense of communal collectivity will be gone, and Africans would be forced to live with a foreign system of rules.
The rift between the Believers and Unbelievers is so deep, that even in communal events, if one group is attending, one can be sure that the other will not be there.
No one is ever invited to a village feast. When people hear there is a feast at someone's homestead, they go there to enjoy themselves... Everyone is welcome at a village feast. Indeed, it is considered sacrilege to stay away from your fellow man's feast. But none of the believers have come. The war of the Believers and Unbelievers has gone to that extent. They don't attend each other's feasts. They do attend each other's funerals... to make sure that the deceased is really dead. One less person to be irritated about. (p62)

This kind of conflict has deeply impacted the way many South Africans live. Often at times, the differences in religious beliefs can cause civil unrest and instability amongst communities. In this case, one can witness the degree of conflict that creates potential social problems, and prevent civil unity.
Another character in the novel that symbolically reciprocates the changing lifestyle of the South Africa is the store shop owner John Dalton. As a white decent and a Believer, he understood that in order to foster African culture in the globalize world of evolving demands, he must advocate environmental conservation in order to preserve the uniqueness of the amaXhosa nation.
However, one must not be fooled by this façade of his strong sense of conservationism and preservation of traditions (he did went to circumcision school). Dalton incorporates capitalistic marketing schemes into the cooperative cultural village that later served as a tourist attraction. These cooperative villages, resembles the very core of what African tradition is perceived to be by foreigners. For the Believers, the cooperative village turns tourist attraction to the Africans daily traditions, into a profit making tourist destination. As presented here, this was the Believer's way of preserving the beauty of Qolorha-by-the-sea.
Camagu learns that NoManage and NoVangelis are two formidable women who earn their living from what John Dalton calls cultural tourism. Their work is to display amasikothe customs and cultural practices of the amaXhosato the white people who are brought to their hut in dalton's four-wheel-drive bakkie, after he has taken them on various trails to Nongqawuse's Valley, the great lagoon, the shipwrecks, the rivers, and the gorges, and the ancient midens and cairns... All these shenanigans are performed by these women in their full isiXhosa traditional costume of the amahomba, which is cumbersome work when people want to look smart and beautiful... And the tourists pay good money for all this foolery. (p 96)

Although the cooperative village exaggerates the cultural meanings and execution of African traditions, it nevertheless preserved a sense of tradition that was necessary to make their adaptation to the outside world possible. Despised by the Unbelievers, the cooperative village was a success. Like Qolorha-by-the-sea, much of Africa is now an amalgamated culture of rich historic traditions tainted by globalization and capitalism.
The partial success of the novel comes from Mda's ability to manipulate the characters of the book and bringing them alive with vivid dramatization. "Qukezwa explains that they sell the best of their harvest to the Blue Flamingo Hotel, or to individual tourists... Those imbhaza and imbhatyisa that have not been bought, the women take home to their families. They fry them with onions and use them as relish to eat with maize porridge or samp" (p102). The little things that shape the way Africans live, to the errands and lifestyle that they lead, one can follow these imagery vividly and embrace the culture with open heart. From love triangle curses to street life, there are no better portrayal of the African culture than the detailed depictions of daily routines of the African women.
The feuding dogmas of the Unbelievers and Believers may never end. However, as these struggles continue, much of the transition both ideologies hinders on the evolving nation itself. What is left now is the unpredictable future. Both sides continue to be threatened and angered by each other for what has happened in the past, and what is to come in their future. Heart of Redness is a snapshot of the evolving Africa, trying to maintain a sense of tradition while at the same time, being exposed to the consequences of globalization. Thus, the byproduct of this concoction is a new cultural identity that embeds the past, present and future altogether.

The story intermingles two time frames: Both share the same family and Xhosa location on the shores of the Indian Ocean. One part tells the story of the British war against the native tribe in the mid-19th century - the war now known as the Zulu war. The other part deals with the present time.

Camugu comes from Johannesburg and tries to fit into the somewhat primitive village of Oorloha. He lands in the middle of the fight that has been going on for 150 years. In those days, the teenage prophetess Nongqawuse Told the tribe that all cattle had be killed and the harvest destroyed. Thus the tribe was split between Believers and Unbelievers, each group blaming the other for whatever went wrong. And so the verbal fighting goes back and forth.

Xhosa used to be a real tribe, but nowadays only the language survives as part of the Bantu languages. That accounts for the click sounds that are mentioned. The Zulu war did take place, of course, and the prophesy also happened. The story is interwoven with the local history.

The narrative has won prizes and has been called "brilliant' and loaded with genuine mythic power. Unfortunately, I can't see it that way. The story drags on and on without there being much of a concrete action. The two time periods are so intermingled as to confuse the reader who constantly has to check the names to place it correctly. Untranslated local words and expressions can be used to good effect, but here they are overdone. And the story itself is not new, not exciting, and utterly predictable.

Under the guise of telling the story of nine generations of women, the reader is subjected to one more male fantasy about the sexual life of women. The "heroine" and her female ancestors have no value other than their sexual use. Does a single woman in this book write anything? NO! Build anything? NO. Work for anything except a secondary role in society? NO! The main character is defined by her willingness to be used as a sexual release for Important Men and when she gets pregnant--within marriage--she opts for an abortion in a pique of selfishness and vengefulness. Her sister likewise represents stifling life by being a mass murderer--a role so far removed from reality as to be a further slap in the face to the life-affirming aspect of being female. Frankly, the book disgusted me. After one-third of the way through it I was able to predict which sexual fantasy would come next, window-dressed as "this is how women really are." Beneath a very thin patina of trying to "be female" the author reveals a scorn for women seldom encountered in contemporary writers. Don't waste your time--read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" instead.

I could hardly be able to have any breaks in reading before I was finished with the book! The same thing happened to me with Brink's "Devil's Valley". I really enjoy his stories!

Imaginings of Sand - André Brink

This beautifully crafted and sensitive book deals with many of the important issues which South Africans must now face in the post-apartheid era. The novel begins with the return of Kristien Muller to her dying grandmother's bedside. The grandmother is a wonderful character, full of enchantment, mischief, energy and most importantly stories. She is the keeper of stories about the family's history and origins, in particular the parallel histories and stories of the women in their family throughout the generations. This is part of the reason for Kristien's return, to receive the gift of stories and memory from her grandmother before the old woman dies. While the novel centres around the relationship between Kristien and her grandmother, Ouma Kristina, the novel is also a complex matrix of parallel and interconnected dialogues with the other characters in the novel, from the past and the present, which constantly interrupt and participate in the central dialogue. Brink deals with the themes of returning home, the re-imagining of the past in order to move forward, recognising roots and ancestry and their implications in the present and the exploration of the dynamics between history and story, the real and the imaginary, and fact and fiction. Brink captures the mood of South Africa on the eve of the elections very accurately, he portrays the heightened states of fear, cynicism and evil alongside the passion, hope, excitement and idealism with sensitivity and compassion, while still conveying a powerful warning to those who wish to thwart the much needed and inevitable transition to democracy. In Ouma Kristina's stories there is a distinctly African flavour, which can be linked to the rediscovery of African tradition in South Africa and the move away from Eurocentric ideologies. Ouma Kristina's stories combine Afrikaner legends and stories with those of the indigenous African people, the KhoiSan and in doing so Brink demonstrates how interconnected the histories of these two groups are, and there is perhaps the suggestion that in rediscovering a shared history lies the hope for conciliation and a better understanding of one another in the future. While this novel has many distinctly South African nuances to it, it should still appeal to a wide readership because apart from the sheer brilliance of Brink's story-telling, the broader themes that are dealt with are really universal in nature and effect most of us at some time in our lives.

This map provides a broad general overview of the country but lacked sufficient detail. The fact that it was laminated is a plus, but didn't make up for the fact that it lacked the detail I sought.

The map is large and easy to read--the lamination is helpful in keeping it in shape--too big for a driving reference, but good for a grand overview of So. Africa.

I found this map to be very usefull on my recent 3 week trip, driving aroung South Africa. This map gave route numbers, when the map the car rental company did not. Also, being nicely laminated - it still looks new after much use.