Short description
The first book by a South African who has worked as a journalist in both his native country and the United States. It offers a black and Afrikaaner view of South Africa, expressed through the medium of a reporter's anguished conscience.
Review
This is the most powerful book about the apartheid era by a white author. Daniel Malan, PM of South Africa 1948, who originated 'apartheid' legislation was Rian Malan's ancestor. After reconstructing his family's 300-year history of pioneering, conquest and exploitation, the book recounts Malan's own experiences, as a journalist, of white/black, black/black and white/white violence and atrocity with an accuracy that is almost too much to bear, precisely because the reader knows that none of it is imaginary. The author's final admission of his own culpability as a white Afrikaner is moving and real. Anyone who wishes to understand the sources of conflict in South Africa should read this book. (Kirkus UK)