My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience - Softcover

Malan, Rian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802136842 ISBN 13: 9780802136848

Publisher: Grove Press, 2000

Synopsis

A classic of literary nonfiction, My Traitor's Heart has been acclaimed as a masterpiece by readers around the world. Rian Malan is an Afrikaner, scion of a centuries-old clan and relative of the architect of apartheid, who fled South Africa after coming face-to-face with the atrocities and terrors of an undeclared civil war between the races. This book is the searing account of his return after eight years of uneasy exile. Armed with new insight and clarity, Malan explores apartheid's legacy of hatred and suffering, bearing witness to the extensive physical and emotional damage it has caused to generations of South Africans on both sides of the color line. Plumbing the darkest recesses of the white and black South African psyches, Malan ultimately finds his way toward the light of redemption and healing. My Traitor's Heart is an astonishing book -- beautiful, horrifying, profound, and impossible to put down.

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: Grove Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0802136842
• ISBN 13: 9780802136848
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368