My Traitor's Heart - Softcover

Malan, Rian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679732152 ISBN 13: 9780679732150

Publisher: Vintage, 1991

Synopsis

An astonishing work of reportage--a book unlike any other about South Africa. Malan searches for the truth behind apartheid, and finds it not in the way black and white South Africans live, but in the way they die at one another's hands.

About this title

Review:

Like many white South Africans of his generation, Rian Malan fled his country to dodge the draft. He felt incredibly guilty for this act, but would have felt equally guilty for not doing it: "I ran because I wouldn't carry a gun for apartheid, and because I wouldn't carry a gun against it." Malan, the product of a well-known Afrikaner family, returned to South Africa and produced My Traitor's Heart, which explores the literal and figurative brutalities of apartheid. Death is a constant presence on these pages, and the narrative is driven by Malan's criminal reportage. This acclaimed book intends to illuminate South Africa's poisonous race relations under apartheid, and few books do it this well.

From the Publisher:

"Remarkable...[Malan's] analysis is penetrating, comprehensive and--in its relentless accumulation of ghastly detail--heartbreaking."--Washington Post Book World
"A passionate, blazingly honest testament...Those who read it will never again see South Africa in quite the same way."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0679732152
• ISBN 13: 9780679732150
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432