South Africa Books

I picked up this book while I was recuperating from a concussion, so when the heroine (one of 2) is lying in a hospital, suffering from a carjacking/shooting, the pain she goes through helped get me through my own.
What a powerful story. It really opened my eyes to S.Africa today. I had assumed S.Africa was the most developed African nation, and things had progressed quite nicely since the end of apartheid. Was I ever wrong! One thing I really liked was how del Fabbro described so many of the players in post-apartheid S. Africa and wove the history of the situation in such a way that didn't bog down the reader but helped him/her to understand the situation today more fully. I especially liked reading about the Dutch (Boer) faction, since I live in the Netherlands.
The story of two women and two young children is poignant and moved me to tears more than once. I really look forward to reading her next book which continues the story.
This book won a Christy award and I can see it was well-deserved! When I finished it, I thought to myself, this would make an excellent Oprah Book Club pick.

Powerful and poignant, for every South African that is courageous enough to have their eyes opened post-apartheid. Through Monica, we experience a journey that is all too familiar, wrestling with the wrongs of the past and feeling inspired for the future of this beautiful country.
For every non-South African - a true insight into a kaleidoscopic country. I laughed, I cringed, I cried - utterly brilliant. Sequel please?

This is our current Book Club book from my church. I was disapointed in this book. It was just not interesting, it was confusing to me switching back and forth between the two main characters. I found myself skimming through the book just in order to finish it before our Book Club meeting. Several of our other members really liked the book. I guess it just wasn't my kind of book. It did enlighten me to the types of prejudices in South Africa between the white classes and even the black classes. Amazing! I wouldn't want to live there, that's for sure.

To be completely honest, I wasn't looking forward to reading "inspirational fiction," but I was COMPLETELY SURPRISED to find myself caught up in this story (and now halfway through the sequel). Sure, it reads a little like a Hallmark movie, but one that is set amid violence and an AIDS epidemic that South Africa's leadership has been extremely slow to address.

I had the great fortune to have the author present at a recent book club discussion of her work. Hearing her first-hand accounts of the violence and politics only made me more appreciative of the book. If you are interested in the country, or are drawn in the least to the images that Oprah and others deliver to Americans in neat, tidy packages, you will enjoy The Road to Home.

This is a lovely book with a story that builds to a very powerful end. It moves so subtly you almost don't realize how caught up you are until you are there.

Two women become friends, despite all the barriers that exist between white and black people in post-Apartheid South Africa. Both women find themselves in situations that force them to evaluate what's important in their lives. In the process, they become important to each other.

I really loved this book. Twice it brought me to tears. The writing is lovely, and the message is both hopeful and kind.

I reviewed this book for my gigh school class after hearing all the praise for it. I was fairly shocked by the unrealistic portrayal of diabetics, how the author irresponsibly portrays them as mentally ill. As for the story itself, it is not terrible, but very bland. The writing was another problem, the author felt that she should use a foriegn dialect without insight as to the meaning of what to me were nonsense words.
Overall I would steer clear of this book, especially if your thinking about a lesson with it, I'm not sure these other critics read the same book as I, if they did, I would have to wonder what substance they abused while reading it.

I thought this was a really fantastic book, the language, the plot and the characters were all very. . . alluring. Sarina's friend Boima supplies a series of dramatic stories throughout the book and Sarina's mother's diabetec probelems are extremely captivating, a must read for anyone who would love to have a change from the everyday world.

BEYOND THE MANGO TREE is a sparkling debut. Ms. Zemser is a unique and jazzy talent. I'm looking forward to more of her work.

Beyond the Mango Tree was an exciting four star book.It is about an American girl who moves to Liberia,in Africa because her dad is offered a job here.It was exciting because one night thieves came to her house and the guard was hit on the head and almost died and Sarina, the main character, was left alone.This book is also sad because even when Sarina doesn't do anything wrong her mother ties her to a tree and makes her stand in a dark muddy puddle. I have never read anything like this book before and recommend it to readers of all ages.

This is a wonderful story of friendship which crosses boundaries of class, race and gender. In spite of Sarina's momentary jealousy and suspicion, in the end she learns that love is important and transcends the boundaries her small world.

A couple of years ago, I realized that I had not educated myself on the tragedy of Rwanda, so I picked up this book. It's very helpful, but could be much better if it were better organized chronologically and also if it had a "scorecard", i.e. a basic outline of the major players. To its credit, it has maps, a chronology, and extensive notes, but the names of the major players are really confusing and that makes it hard to follow from time to time.

I would also have liked to see more substantive interpretation. There are repeated suggestions that the French government was supportive of the murderous Hutu regime, but that is never really explained or explored sufficiently. I would also have liked to see more discussion and analysis of the role of Christian churches.

But this, along with the films "Hotel Rwanda" and "Sometimes in April" is probably a pretty good place to start if you want to know what happened in Rwanda and what is happening still in other parts of Africa.

I agree 100% with the review by Mike Kerrigan, but I am a little more severe than him in my rating of the book. The book truly reads more like a factual report of who said what to whom in what location and at what time of the day than like a telling of one of the most important historical events of the last few decades.

I definitely liked the fact that the book was loaded with information, but I would have liked it to be presented differently for an easier reading. For instance, the emphasis seems to be more on who said what than on what actually happened, which makes it difficult to understand the sequence of events; too many names are constantly mentioned and one gets lost and has to flip back frequently. Another thing that forces you to flip back often is the fact that the author often skips back and forth in time and place.

All in all, if you are familiar with the whole episode, you will most likely enjoy the level of detail of this book and appreciate learning who made which decisions. However, if what you want is a good and thorough introduction into the Rwandan genocide, this book is probably not the best as it might cause too much confusion, I would recommend Dallaire's book instead.

Melvern's book is a deeply researched work that provides a detailed account of the events leading up to and throughout the Rwandan genocide. Her work with the International Criminal Tribunal clearly comes through in the book. This is both good and bad.

It's good because of the level of detail she provides and her strong ability to reconstruct events using an extensive collection of sources. Unfortunately the book sometimes reads like a report for the tribunal; it documents the people involved in orchestrating a particular crime and its details, but in a sterile way that doesn't seem to tap into the human emotions that the murders should evoke. Also, her familiarity with the people she documents caused the easy usage of a multitude of names in the book that were difficult for this reader to separate without a lot of page-flipping to recall their place within the story.

That said, this book won't disappoint anyone looking to understand the origins and events of the Rwandan genocide. The author does an excellent job of showing the failures of the Western response to the crisis without deflecting blame from the central characters within Rwanda who spent years planning and executing the genocide.

This book is probably the perfect compliment to `We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.' This book is less detailed than Melvern's work, but focuses on documenting the genocide through the stories of survivors and thus provides more of a human element.

Indeed the world did fail Rwanda as the author points out in the book about the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. First off, Egypt and France sell huge quantities of arms to a government in a civil war. The French even send military advisers to train the Hutu Power militias. This advisory team has the intials C.R.A.P., something easily indentifiable with the French. The British and Americans downplay the fact that a genocide is about to occur and even urge no U.N. peacemakers be sent to the country. Boutros Ghali-U.N. Secretary General and one of those who earlier sold weapons to the Rwandan Hutus downplays the possibility of large scale killings and genocide. When the genocide does occur, they are in disbelief and don't react for two months while 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus are killed. Finally when the bankrupt Hutu Power regime is in its last gasp, the French send humanitarian assistance to the Hutus.
As the author shows, there is plenty of blame to go around. The Americans and British prevented help from being sent to prevent a genocide. The French supported a genocidal regime, and in my opinion don't even deserve to be on the Security Council. Hutu Power hopefully has been consigned to the dustbin of history. The U.N. is a paper tiger with feckless authority. The world did indeed turn its back on 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. A good read about a tragic event.

spawned a rich and growing literature. This account, focused mostly on events on the ground, offers little new information about the international context and, unfortunately, covers only the first chapter of these grim events, ending with the July 1994 military victory of Paul Kagame and his Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front and the start of a chaotic exodus of hundreds of thousands of Hutus to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite these shortcomings, Melvern, a journalist who has written before about Rwanda and the UN, provides an authoritative account. Breaking new ground, she documents the extensive preparation for the genocide by extremists within the government of President Juvénal Habyarimana going back at least to 1991. When the genocide began, they had bought and distributed the equivalent of one machete for every three Hutu males and, with breathtaking cynicism, manipulated the media and state institutions to stoke anti-Tutsi passions to a fever pitch.

This novel written by John Briley, demonstrates the courage and struggle of Steve Biko, as well as other black citizens.
The story took place in South Africa during the Apartheid period. Black people were treated unfairly, and deserve no rights. This story also gives Biko's idea on equality to the readers.
The author describe vividly about black people's lives in South Africa. In the story' it show black people participating an underground speech made by Steve Biko. All the black people wish that they could be the same as the white people are, that's why they are there, though it's risky.
I am pleased with Biko' spirit. He demonstrates human's basic desire-freedom.
This novel is very easy to understand, and it's the best non-fiction novel I ever read. However, this novel is too predictable, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

This novel written by John Briley, demonstrates the courage and struggle of Steve Biko, as well as other black citizens.
The story took place in South Africa during the Apartheid period. Black people were treated unfairly, and deserve no rights. This story also gives Biko's idea on equality to the readers.
The author describe vividly about black people's lives in South Africa. In the story' it show black people participating an underground speech made by Steve Biko. All the black people wish that they could be the same as the white people are, that's why they are there, though it's risky.
I am pleased with Biko' spirit. He demonstrates human's basic desire-freedom.
This novel is very easy to understand, and it's the best non-fiction novel I ever read. However, this novel is too predictable, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

This novel written by John Briley, demonstrates the courage and struggle of Steve Biko, as well as other black citizens.
The story took place in South Africa during the Apartheid period. Black people were treated unfairly, and deserve no rights. This story also gives Biko's idea on equality to the readers.
The author describe vividly about black people's lives in South Africa. In the story' it show black people participating an underground speech made by Steve Biko. All the black people wish that they could be the same as the white people are, that's why they are there, though it's risky.
I am pleased with Biko' spirit. He demonstrates human's basic desire-freedom.
This novel is very easy to understand, and it's the best non-fiction novel I ever read. However, this novel is too predictable, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

John Briley did a very good job on describing Biko's life, as well as the lives of other black citizens in South Africa during the Apartheid period.
The protagonist of this story is a newspaper editor, Donald Woods. He is the white man who agrees with Biko's idea, which is that, all the black people and white people live together peacefully and deserve equal rights. However, tragically, the police killed Biko. After that, Woods get him into trouble, because he is investigating on Biko's death.

This story is a sad story, but it shows the spirit of those who sacrifice for freedom in South Africa. This story is very predictable, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

This is the book which tells us the story of a black banned south african, who thinks black should get free, and insists not using violence, but words. By chance he meets a reporter named Donald Woods and they ge to be friends.

But as their friendship develops so does the south african wihes to catch him. Finally he's caught and the editor banned. But he'll strugle to get freedom and publish a book about these black leader.

Sad but true and exciting story of the late seventies, definetely recommendable.

Vijay Prashad's book "The Darker Nations" is a mix between modern history, political pamphlet and political economic analysis. Subtitled "A People's History of the Third World", it should not be thought of as a history of this part of the world as such, but as a history of the concept of the 'Third World' and its political implications.

Prashad's main thesis is that the Third World project was a national liberation project, generally progressive and secular, born out of anti-colonialism and popular mass mobilization to achieve independence for formerly colonized nations. Prashad describes the various institutions and movements all over the world involved in this, their respective leaders and backgrounds, and why they succeeded or failed (mostly the latter). He puts many well known institutions and developments in the Third World into this context, from OPEC to the 'Asian Tigers', which gives new insight into familiar phenomena, while at the same time chronicling the often unfortunately short history of the defeat of mass leftist movements in the underdeveloped world.

The general gist here is that whereas the initial national liberation governments were varied in their class background and aims, they all came from mass mobilizations against imperialism and as such were imbued with a developmental, egalitarian and nationalist-secular ethos. However, the combined force of the world market and the neo-colonialist states (essentially the entire First World) defeated these movements and funded and enabled reactionary movements in these Third World nations, leading to the destruction of the left in many places where it was formerly strong, such as Indonesia and Sudan. The now familiar story of IMF 'structural adjustment', unfair terms of trade, regressive policies on the part of local elites and bourgeoisie supported (sometimes myopically) by First World governments, and the selfish approaches of supposed defenders of international socialism like the USSR and China combine to tell the tale of why the Third World project failed.

The book is evocative, strong and well-written. One could make two objections to it: the first being that while Prashad is understandably enthousiastic about the initial idea of left-wing, secular anti-imperialism in the Third World, one might say he tends to portray it as more viable and as better than it was, and the second being the related charge that Prashad is often much better at describing how a given movement failed than why this happened. The book could definitely have benefited from a more in-depth political economic approach, explaining why exactly Third World attempts at egalitarian development failed from Tanzania to Indonesia, and how the reactionary forces managed and still manage to have the support to stay in power; a good example of this is the chapter on Singapore, which explains the regressive nature of the Singaporean elite state (as well as those of Taiwan and South Korea), but it does not explain very well why they nonetheless had much more success at development than African or Latin American left-wing governments did.

On the other hand, the actual political chronicling and the 'snapshots' of the various nations and their political histories in terms of anti-imperialist development are very good, and Prashad is an engaged and compelling author. Recommended as an addition to more specific political economic studies of the Third World.

In 1927, two hundred delegates from thirty-seven states and regions gathered in Brussels and formed the League Against Imperialism. In doing so they gave an institutional voice to the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the vast majority of the people in the world who eventually found their countries sandwiched between the "first" world of the United States and the "second" world of the Soviet Union. Not wanting to align with either empire, from that meeting onward the "third world" (a word coined in 1952 by Albert Sauvy) became a prolonged international project and not just a place of misery. The setting was fraught with irony, for Belgium was then led by King Leopold II, whose shameless pillage of the Congo had few peers. In this history of the majority of the world's peoples, Vijay Prashad traces their elusive quest, its problems and pitfalls, and the causes and consequences of its failure.

Prashad's organization takes one on a global tour; each one of his eighteen chapter titles is a major city of the third world project. In Part 1 he considers the quest (Paris, Brussels, Bandung, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Tehran, Belgrade, and Havana); in Part 2 the pitfalls (Algiers, La Paz, Bali, Tawang, Caracas, and Arusha); then in Part 3 the "assassinations" of the project (New Delhi, Kingston, Singapore, Mecca). The third world sought three goals, he says: political independence and self-rule; peaceful co-existence and non-violent international relations; and using the United Nations as the means to push its agenda, all in contrast to the militarism, economic dominance, and ostensible superiority of the American and Soviet spheres. Along the way Prashad tackles most every aspect of this struggle, including education, bureaucratism, land reform, suffrage, religion, revolutionary violence, foreign aid, transnational corporations, the "villigization" of millions of people, the debt crisis, natural resources, and women's discrimination.

The third world project failed badly for many complex reasons. After freeing themselves from the shackles of imperial overlords, countries tended to centralize power in the state instead of establishing effective social democracies, stifled dissent, ignored rule of law, plundered national treasure, and set up military regimes ruled by dictator-thugs ("Nothing good comes from a military dictatorship."). The predator first world continued their economic plunder thanks to the threat of overwhelming military, political, and economic means (globalization, the IMF, etc.). And thus the "catastrophic demise" of the third world project. Crushing debt and widening income gaps between rich and poor nations are only the most obvious signs that most people in the world remain marginalized by their own states and exploited by the first world. But at least they now have a history of their struggle, thanks to Prashad.

This book is an ambitious effort to chart the fortunes of the political project of unifying the postcolonial world into 'the third world'. It is not, however, a 'people's' history, either in the senses of charting the demographic transformations of ordinary people (literacy, urbanization, etc) or anthropologically describing how they understood the dramatic events (revolutions, counterrevolutions, development experiments, etc) unfolding. It is almost exclusively concerned with the major leaders and some of the intellectuals and artists who shaped the consciousness of the period. Indeed, even if it was not titled 'people's history', I think it could be faulted by being a little vague about 'the people'. In any case, the book is basically divided into three parts. The first section, 'Quest', considers some themes (economics, nationalism, gender, etc) through the optic of major conferences. The second, 'pitfalls', highlights places that epitomize themes like military coups and socialism from above. The third section, 'Assassinations' describes the demise of the third world as a subject as a result of neoliberalism, the IMF, the rise of East Asia, and religious fundamentalism. In all sections, Prashad tends to move between the focus of the chapter and historical geographical events that are far afield and occur before and after the moment in question. The effect can be a little vertiginous. Certainly he deserves credit for attempting such an expansive work, and his knowledge about the time period appears to be vast. However, I found his organization a little too tidy, and his political perspective restricted by his focus on state leaders. Particularly since he regards the UN as something of an instrument for third world advancement (an interesting contrast with Perry Anderson, who claims its just a front for the US), why does he disregard the international conferences held under its auspices in the last fifteen years regarding the environment, women, and racism? Although attended by people from countries in the North as well as the South, at these forums it is probably fair to say that Southern perspectives tended to prevail and throw the North on the defensive. And why is not a word breathed about the World Social Forum? Is it because he regards NGOs (also almost completely absent from his book) as instruments of Northern domination, or because he regards social movements as insignificant compared to states? The absence of any discussion of these issues seems almost sectarian, as does his fairly crude analysis of religion (focused on Saudi-backed Wahhabi Islam--the Iranian revolution is practically unmentioned). Finally, he doesn't seem to have noticed, as have some other writers, that a number of third world states have begun to recover from neoliberalism and seem to be gradually reasserting themselves.

The Third World is a Cold War term, meaning mostly former nations that were ruled by Europeans and won their political independence in the decades after the second world war. That's how most people understand it anyway. It started off as a term of empowerment and hope by the leaders of the newly independent countries in the 1950s, after years of trying to bind the colonized into a single cause. These leaders saw that the First capitalist world and the Second Soviet-bloc world needed the Third world for its resources, people, and support in the global cold war, and they did not want to be pawns anymore.

The Third World Project started in the 1955 at the Bandung Asian-African Conference, when the Nonaligned Movement was founded (NAM) in opposition to the 1st and 2nd Worlds. From here, the Third World was split by internal divisions, attacks by the West and Eastern blocs, and finally outright destruction of the "Third World" by economic policies pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United States, as well as political and military attacks by the USA and its allies. In "The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World" by Vijay Prashad, the history of this push for unity, the contradictions of the class of leaders in trying to build this better Third world, the splits within the movement, and the final assassination of the Third World Project.

The book switches between different locations and different situations. Prashad points out that there was a strange contradiction in the work of building a Third World. The ruling class of the decolonized countries supported the new rulers, in many places, who wanted to stand up for themselves. But at the same time, as time went on, they also supported all-powerful dictators and neo-liberal economics that lead to the resources of the country being drained out like vampires (leading to continuation of places which have some of the richest resources of the world and some of the poorest people, like in Congo.) Projects like OPEC started as the "darker nations" tried to control their own politics, though it soon disintegrated into just rulers enriching themselves. In the end, they worked better with ruling classes of the 1st world than the people of their own countries.



Prashad goes to each place, from Singapore, to Indonesia and Suharto, to Baghdad, and explores the rise and fall of the Third World. Today, he ends, the Third World is dead. However, an international movement, free of imposed movements from above or directly by the elites of the government, has arisen and the world is changing to oppose the US. The book is an interesting look at an attempt by the leaders of former colonized places to fight back, though it can be a little disorienting traveling across so many places so fast (which is probably what trying to organize all those places to act together would have been like.) How the First World was able to destroy this movement is a pretty good lesson of history for any person to know.

This book gets high marks for its sheer wealth of information, though it's not a casual reading experience. Here Vijay Prashad has continued the spirit of Howard Zinn's classic "A People's History of the United States," and this book is a strong inaugural release in what will hopefully be a continuing series. Here Prashad constructs the "Third World" as a Cold War term for all the disadvantaged nations that were caught in the crossfire between the First and Second Worlds, and were usually abused as pawns in the era's strictly bilateral games of geopolitics and development. Specifically, most of Prashad's work concerns the Non-Aligned Movement of nations that tried to resist taking sides in the bilateral Cold War, and attempted to build a coalition of nations that could stand as a viable entity with its own ideologies and political strategies. Prashad provides a wealth of little-known information on the nations and leaders that attempted to build this movement, and the political and economic realities faced by the peoples and societies that were being used and left behind by the superpowers.

Those familiar with Zinn's book will recognize the travails of the passionate historian who can't figure out how to synthesize vast quantities of historical knowledge. The first half of this book is tough to digest, consisting of an interminable laundry list of names and events with little over-arching analysis, giving the impression that Prashad is trying to describe every single thing that happened during the Cold War era outside of the US, Europe, and USSR. Occasional snippets of theory also seem forced and awkward, such as Prashad's examinations of unnatural borders or the behavior of military dictators. Fortunately, the book improves in the second half, as Prashad manages to develop his previously disconnected bits of history and theory into a strong overall analysis of how the superpowers "assassinated" (in his rather hyperbolic term) the Third World movement and its promises of social and economic progress, through globalization, conquest, and corporatism. Most importantly, Prashad does not refrain from criticizing the Third World nations too, as many of them have compounded their own misery by reverting to old styles of inequality and dictatorship. While this book has some real readability issues, and Prashad can sometimes be faulted for steering historical data toward his own theories, the reader is rewarded with a great amount of knowledge on peoples and leaders who have been forgotten in the histories of winners. [~doomsdayer520~]

A very slow read and pretty depressing. Vocabulary difficult - maybe common in South Africa.

Great historical depiction of the Apartide in South Africa. Beautifully written; it reads as a historical memoir. Plot not that engaging. Very interesting protagonist point of view. By the end of the book, the question of 'accurate' memory lingers.

One of the lessons to be learned from The Persistence of Memory is that a photographic memory does not necessarily tell the larger truth. The short and perfectly recollected moments in the life of Paul Sweetbread (the protagonist with perfect recall) add up to a whole that is somehow less than the sum of its parts. Sweetbread is unconvincing and unreliable as a narrator precisely because his grip on the details is so startlingly clear.

Cameras lie, Eprile tells us. The propaganda corps of the South African army stage scenes where soldiers play football with local children. Judicious cropping is all that is needed to make the perfect observer into one that cannot be trusted. The comparison with Sweetbread as witness is inevitable.

I can think of very few metaphors that would work better for the process of truth and reconciliation in South Africa. It is a brilliant idea for a book, and one that seems to fit perfectly with the situation that it is describing.

The flaw in the book is that it seems to try to do too much above and beyond developing this central idea. The Persistence of Memory is also a coming of age story, and also has a lot to do with the response of Paul as a human (and not a camera) to what he sees in Namibia. There is a lot of material, and unfortunately the beautifully written individual scenes do not seem to gel very effectively into a larger whole. As a reading experience, I found it disjointed and ultimately unsympathetic.

It might sound strange to sum up a review by saying that while I admire the book immensely, I am not certain how widely I would recommend it. I certainly think that it would be of interest to people who have read a lot in the literature of South Africa. I can also tell you that it makes a satisfactory book for a book club. We had a lot to talk about after it was finished.

It is at least an impressive effort. Eprile is a writer to watch for the future.

Read it for yourself to decide what you think.

South Africa from 1968 - 2000 is revealed in all its cultural variety and internal stresses through the life story of Paul Sweetbread, an overweight Jewish boy who is an outsider to everyone. Neither a Boer nor an Englishman, he is also not really a Jew, since his family has never been observant, leaving him without any common roots that connect him to his Caucasian countrymen. A person with a photographic memory, he is, from the outset, a victim of his memory. Because he can quote from his schoolbooks exactly, teachers think he cheats; his fellow students torment him.

As he sets the scene and creates a fully drawn personality for Paul, the author recreates his early school and home life, his relationships with black servants, and his family history, including the death of his father. The action intensifies when Paul, having finished school in 1987, joins the South African Defense Force for two years, instead of going to college. South Africa is nervously protecting its borders against what it believes are communist insurgents, while also facing threats from within. Apartheid has been challenged, the British and Boers are at odds, and African nationalism is growing.

Paul's wartime experiences, recreated in stunning detail, further develop his character as he observes Captain Lyddie, "The perfect specimen of South African manhood," engaging in racial brutality, described in passages of great power which embed themselves in Paul's perfect memory and in the reader's. The battle for survival of South Africa and the changes which will be necessary as the country changes from white to black rule are ever at the forefront of the novel. Paul's empathy for the Bushmen, whom the SADF uses as trackers, is palpable, while his fear, engendered during a photo assignment in a black township, reflects his awareness of the dangers from within.

Thoughtful and challenging but filled with wry humor, Eprile's novel presents events from Paul Sweetbread's life slowly, sometimes deliberately omitting important information in order to maintain suspense and let the reader come to know Paul through his life and actions, rather than through background information. He creates a sympathetic picture of an extremely sensitive young man who finds himself in impossible situations which mark him for life. His philosophical musings near the end of the book about memory and metaphor raise important questions about society and national "memory," how a country constructs its memories of the past in order to make it acceptable, and careful readers will savor the language and sheer intelligence of Eprile's observations. Mary Whipple

After reading several books by J.M. Coetzee, I was more or less prepared for the conditions and incidents portrayed by Mr. Eprile. However, the experience here is that of a person maturing in the closing years of apartheid, rather than the older characters in Mr. Coetzee's works. The result is a view into the vulnerability of a young person trying to adapt to a collapsing racist society, the lack of alternatives for living a morally fulfilling life. Perhaps it's this lack of structure in the experience that leads to a shortage of structure in the novel. While some of the parts are intensely interesting, and all are worth reading, most can be read without reference to the others. The lead character's gift of memory is a unifying factor, but really not vital to most of the events. The writing is outstanding, though it might benefit from cutting, and the work is entertaining despite the grim subject at its center.

i cannot praise this book highly enough for the wonderful and powerful picture of south africa it draws. she manages to capture the essence of life on a south african farm, the people in the rural community, both farmers and labourers, the land itself, master servant relations, the apartheid era, the truth and reconciliation era, the experience of being an expat and returning to africa, drought, young boys on military service, and on and on. some of the scenes she creates are so very true to life, they hit me in the gut. the servants being forgotten by the roadside the day of funeral and waiting for hours in the sun, still expecting and hoping to be picked up by one of the baas's friends, driving around farm roads at night looking for animals, the careless gun accident, the freedom fighter hiding in the donga and being taken food by a fearful young black woman, fugard gets it all right somehow. if you want to experience south africa in all its beauty and strength and tragedy and pain, this is a great book to read.

I have spent much time in Africa, some of it on the banks of the Limpopo where much of this story takes place. Others have summarized the plot. I urge people to read this book for its insight into Africa, its poignant study of apartheid from both sides of skin color but also from the myriad sides of the emotions and feelings of those who were there. It is also a book about regret, mistakes, going home and not wanting to and about the way we all move towards dust. The treatment of love, physical, emotional, love of people, horses, dogs, animals and place are brilliantly rendered. I could smell the bush of Africa in these pages and feel the way in which the characters read each others emotions, not through the words spoken, but through faces, bodies and movement. A tour de force - well done Lisa.

In Lisa Fugard's debut novel, SKINNER'S DRIFT, a prodigal daughter returns to her father's farm in Africa for the first time in ten years. Eva van Rensburg fled not only the farm, but her country and her relationship with her father after her mother was accidentally shot and killed. For Eva, South Africa is a place of contradictions, and she must confront them and her relationship to her family and her history as her father's health fails and she is called home.

Skinner's Drift is Martin van Rensburg's farm along the Limpopo River, which forms the border with Botswana. The Afrikaner van Rensburg settles his English wife and their daughter there and begins to carve a life in the dusty hills. Eva feels isolated by her mother's Englishness and later by her father's intensity and violence. Martin is a man fiercely proud of his heritage and his land, humbled only by the stutter that slows his tongue. His wife Lorraine loves the farm at first but comes to resent its hold on her husband and the harsh conditions of life there. Eva and her father share a special bond until one night a hunt turns disastrous. She spends the rest of her time on Skinner's Drift trying to atone for her father's crime and eventually, when her mother dies, leaving her father, the farm, and South Africa for America.

When Eva returns, at her aunt's request, she believes she is coming home to bury her father. The political and social changes that had begun before she left have transformed South Africa into a place unfamiliar to her in some ways. It is 1997 and apartheid is over, but the damage on the culture and people remains. Still, the landscape and many of the faces welcome Eva home. When she finally visits Skinner's Drift she finds Lefu, an African farmhand employed by her father, still working the land and the bond she shares with him is still strong. However, he has learned of the secret she has been keeping all these years about what happened that night while hunting with her father, and he has shared it with his grandson Mpho.

Can Eva come to terms with her past, with her identity, and with the realities of her homeland? Can she forgive her father and herself? Will she begin to understand the depths of her mother's loneliness? Fugard's lovely novel centers on these questions. Although her literary devices are expected (flashbacks, diary entries, family secrets), they don't feel stale or contrived. Fugard's style is fresh and readable, and her characters are frustratingly real. The isolation and tension as well as the natural beauty of Skinner's Drift come alive with the author's descriptions.

Eva is not always an easy character to like. Her sadness and pain are obstacles, and she comes across as smug or uncaring at times. But this is in keeping with Fugard's realism, a realism not untouched by poetry and a romantic streak. By far the most notable characters are Lefu and his family, his daughter Nkele, and her son Mpho. They are an interesting parallel and contrast to the van Rensburgs.

SKINNER'S DRIFT is dramatic and immensely readable. While not wholly original in content, Fugard's style saves the book from being ordinary. Eva's shame and her confusion about home and identity are wonderfully set against the fraught background of South Africa in the 1980s. Fugard nicely captures the tensions of her very real setting as well as those inside her fictional characters.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

I enjoyed this book from the first page - terrific writing, character descriptions and totally engrossing. I especially liked the way the author went back and forth in time and gave the reading reflections from the narrator.

This book is very disappointing. The writing is not particularly good, only some of the characters are credible and the plot is weak. The ending is terribly disappointing - it just seemed to stop when she ran out of ideas. Don't bother. There are much better books to read.

This book is about Mamphelafs political life. Personal aspects of her life are rarely told unless they pertain to her activism or illustrate inequality. Individuals are rarely mentioned; those that are, are rarely mentioned more than once.

Donft read this book if you want an old-fashioned story with interesting characters who interact to create entertaining plots.

Read this book to learn about the battle of a black woman against patriarchal apartheid. Read about her gsuperwomanh strengths and the sacrifices she made for the movement.

Across Boundaries is an excellent book focussing on a mother's struggle to want a job and to be a mother at the same time. Even thogh this book was written by a woman from Africa it still pertains to many American mothers who struggle over the same problem. This book did not only focus on the mother aspect, but also on the fact that a woman wanted to help the condition of other woman also.

Across Boundaries was an excellent book about a women's struggle to be amother and have a career. As said in the book "Recognising thatyou are a member of the global village is essential to lifting you above the narrow nationalistic interests and concerns of your own country (222)." Mamphela's life was a pursuit for women to rise above the boundaries and the story was very detailed, and well written! END

Across Boundaries by Mamphela Ramphele is a fascinating autobiography about the extraordinary journey of a South African woman leader. From historical events to her personal experiences, Ramphele describes these events and struggles with dignity. Throughout her endeavors as a young child and continued to her adulthood, she is committed and determined to succeed and to make a difference. An honest testimony that shows her fears and courage. This is an excellent book and it will keep you reading for this one woman's strength is amazing. Through moderate to difficult times and tribulations Mamphela Ramphele keeps a remarkable and uplifting attitude that helps bring new light to unfortunate situations.

I found Mamphela Ramphele's autobiography very interesting and amazing. The struggles she went through during her life absolutely amazed me! She is one of the strongest women I have ever heard of. I enjoyed reading about her fight for rights, her relationship with Steve Biko, and how she balanced all of her activities. I found it very interesting that she did not put motherhood as a priority in her life as many other women do. I enjoyed reading "Across Boundaries" and I thought Mamphela did a good job of telling the true story of her life.

Before having this book I had 3 others on east, west and southern Africa.
This book is more complete than the others including species not in the 3 others!
This "new" species are in Zaire and Angola not covered by classicals recents guides to birds of Africa.

You MUST have this book!

This book has taken on a monumental task by introducing the entire bird fauna of a huge region in one volume.
I was sceptical before seeing it, thinking that quantity would probably take priority over quality. It did not!
For a start, it is surprisingly detailed and well-organized. The editors have resisted the usual temptetion of cramming too many similar or small species on one page. Usually there are just 5-6 species on each page, sometimes 7 or just 3-4.
What this means is that illustrations are big enough to show detail, plus there are often 4 or more different illustrations for the same 1 species, showing different colour morphs, juveniles, females, birds in flight, head or wing details, etc.
It also means that the maps and text for each species could be placed on the page facing its picture.
The text itself is still amazingly detailed for a book of this scope, giving the essential information on distribution, appearence, habitat, status and voice.
Too good to be true? Well, some of the illustrations show important colour or pattern details wrongly, even contradicting description in the text - in these cases the text tends be more accurate, so have a look at that one, too!
But all in all, this book is a great value introduction to the bird fauna of Africa, though perhaps unsurprisingly, I found it a bit too bulky to carry on the field.

This is the first field guide type book that enables birdwatchers to get an overview of what mainland Africa has to offer as far as birds are concerned. The only area that is not covered by this book is North Africa. Most of that is included in every major field guide for Europe. So in the end, just a few species of northern Sudan escape coverage in this way. Compared with other books that claim to be field guides, this one is still relatively compact. Certainly so, when one takes into account the incredibly rich avifauna. A total of more than 2100 species are covered.

The color plates, as a whole, are excellent. As they were drawn by a number of artists, the general impression of "unity" is missing to some extent. But that is a problem of most modern field guides, as it would take too long - in an impatient market - for one artist to come up with a full set of good plates. The original South-African publisher Struik had the possibility to use many pictures from other field guides they publish. This may have been the only way to make such a monumental task feasible at all.

The texts and range maps are opposite the plates. This practical - and customary - arrangement necessitates rather short texts. However, they are very informative, providing the essentials for a field guide like field identification, habitat, abundance, and voice. The range maps do not show seasonal changes, but the texts compensate to some degree with brief hints.

For some areas of Africa, this is the first field guide available, whereas one would probably take recourse to the more compact regional books where they are available. At any rate, the publishers are to be congratulated to this most valuable and well organized book.

We purchased this book upon our return from a safari in Kenya and Tanzania because our guides used it. We used it to identify birds in the 650 best of our photos, and found it to be quite complete and reliable. It's a winner.

I used it in Cameroon last year and in Niger this year. Although it suffers some weaknesses, like some breeding/non-breeding plumage difference not documented, and like some upper-parts of raptors not shown, this is definitely one of the books any birdwatcher must have in his pocket in the West Africa bush, and I would not leave without it, although it is a little worn out now. The Borrow & Demey is a good complement.

I kept asking myself for the first hundred pages, "is this a good book?" It is, but I needed to explain it to myself. The novel is set in a South African equivalent of, say, a renegade Mormon enclave in some lost canyon of remotest Utah (I apologize for the imperfect comparison). What sets the story in motion is pure detective story boilerplate: a young man who has fled the community for a life on the outside dies under mysterious circumstances after blabbing to a stranger about it ? who also happens to be crime reporter ("is this a good book?"). The reporter (predictably washed up and foul-mouthed) treks into the valley to get the scoop and finds a holler teaming with gothic characters, falling in love with one of the youngest and most beautiful of them ("is this a good book?"). Even the ending concludes on a predictable note of Judgment. And yet, I found this skeleton able to support a very rich and dialogical fabric of storytelling that drew me on and on. In particular, the predictable genre aspects of this structure allow Brink's moments of magical realism (there are many) to really take flight. Clearly the novel also functions as a parable about Afrikaners' collective soul-searching (or lack thereof) in the wake of "Truth and Reconciliation." But to this Southern American reader, this novel put me in mind of progressive, if not exactly liberal writers like Robert Penn Warren and Walker Percy: novelists who were also torn between celebrating and mourning the difficult passage of their people from feudal social relations to modernity. Anyway, when a novel starts engaging my own experience in this way, for my money, it is a good one.

This is a very strange book. The narrator is a true anti-hero, a loser who seems determined for some reason to visit a lost and utterly remote enclave of inbred people. He does make it and right away sees a vision of a beautiful woman whom he later learns is Emma. Most of the book relates the interviews he has with all the strange characters tho why they would all tell him all their intimate secrets when they fear and distrust strangers is hard to accept. Another strong annoyance with me at least is the constant use of expletives in totally gratuitous ways. In quoting a conversation, OK, but not so unnecessarily in the narrative. I will say that the climax was well done and kept me turning the final pages but it was only stubbornness on my part that kept me going that far. Maybe only the people in South Africa would appreciate this one.

I wasn't even sure at what parts I was supposed to supend my disbelief. Brink weaves a South African Boer mythology that makes the Greek version seem mundane. Like all mythologies, it explained a culture. His story of a village of secluded and inbred hyper-calvinist helped me to understand the Boer. And I don't mean that in a bad way. They were obviously a rugged God-fearing jihad going people, tougher than nails, living shrapnel. He brings you into their world view through the stories they use to explain it. This book is mighty.

I very much enjoyed Brink's novel "Devils Valley." A strange story that keeps you on the edge, wondering what is going to happen next. Magic, ghosts (looking and acting much like real people), and a gritty realistic texture to the location and people are combined with significant social insights and total unpredictability to make Devils Valley as _novel_ a book as any I've read. Brink's examination of local history and journalistic writing also delves into some interesting domains: for example, where and how much is it proper to delve into people's personal affairs.

I'm a bit surprised that other readers didn't look at this book as more of an attempt by the author to describe a place that is more literally an aspect of the title itself.

SPOILERS: Brink does not answer the question of whether we are reading about one person's hell (or purgatory) or not, but there is much in the book that hints that the main character, Flip Lochner, is in his own personal hell. We are told very little about Flip's previous life, as one example, other than that his wife kicked him out of the house, and that he has a grown son and daughter that no longer have much to do with him. Is Flip meeting other people that are involved in independent familial beatings and rapes, or are these people simply projections of his own past? There is much in Devils Valley that is hard to read, but it is done in a smart, engaging, questioning way. A great book, with much to think and ponder on.

This book captures the essence of being South African in a brutally funny way. Being a white, Afrikaans-speaking woman, I could identify in an almost frightening manner with the fallen hero of the book, Flip Lochner. 'Devil's Valley', with it's wonderfully twisted plot and surreal characters, took me on a shocking, surprising journey into a part of my heritage.

It is a pity that this fabulous book will be less accessible to non-South Africans. It is such an intensely personal portrait of everything South African that the details are less likely to make sense to someone who has not grown up on that sunny southern tip of the dark continent.

No doubt so much of the Afrikaans language (not to mention the extremely effective swear words!) were lost in the translation. I can liken it to good poetry; truely stirring in its original language, but less spell-binding when translated. I encourage people of all nationalities to give this book a try. If it's not your cup of tea, rest assured that a clan of white Africans will treasure it as a wonderful part of their culture.