Love in the Time of Apartheid - Hardcover

Frederic Hunter

3.08 out of 5 stars

12 ratings by Goodreads

9781579624446: Love in the Time of Apartheid

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579624448 ISBN 13: 9781579624446

Publisher: Permanent Press, 2016

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Gat, a 30-year-old member of the Katanga Gendarmerie, the Belgian colonial police force, is sent from the newly independent Congo to South Africa with a wallet full of blood money and instructions to "Disappear." He arrives there, bearing a secret and searching for redemption.

In Cape Town he meets Petra, the 18-year-old daughter of Piet Rousseau, who heads the Bureau of State Security for the apartheid government. When Gat and Piet meet at her parent's home their interaction is chilly, for Gat makes it clear that he does not believe in apartheid. And it soon becomes clear that Piet can employ draconian measures against anyone trying to oppose the regime's separation of the races.

Gat and Petra are strongly attracted to one another. About to start university, Petra wants desperately to escape the overprotective care of her father. What better way to do this than to begin a passionate love affair with a mysterious man she hardly knows?

When Petra and Gat set off on a road trip, the battle between Piet and Gat is fully engaged, and the outcome for all three of these people remains in limbo until the novel ends.

This historical novel, based on actual events, provides a hair-rising look at the worst-of-times under the Afrikaner regime.

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About the Author

Frederic Hunter's first encounter with Africa came as a Foreign Service Officer of the United States Information Service assigned to the Congo. He served there in three posts: Coquilhatville, Bukavu, and Leopoldville. After taking a master's degree from UCLA in African Studies, he served as the Africa Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor.

A playwright and screenwriter as well as a novelist, his award-winning stage work The Hemingway Play received a workshop production at the Eugene O Neill Playwrights Conference and was produced by PBS' Hollywood Television Theater series. Movies Hunter has written have been produced by PBS, ABC and CBS. He has also taught screenwriting at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at Principia College where he also gave a course in Modern African Literature.

Review

"A quasi-political thriller and love story set in 1960s Africa. Gat, aka Adriaan Gautier, has been given instructions by his Belgian superiors in the Congo: "disappear." With $2,000 American and a forged passport, he flees to South Africa to reinvent himself and shrug off the demons that haunt him from his soldiering in Prime Minster Patrice Lumumba's new Congo. The lonely Gat eyes an 18-year-old beauty from an Afrikaner and English family, and he begins a promising courtship. But Petra is the daughter of a racist Cape Town police colonel, and Gat abhors apartheid. Gat, who is guilt-ridden and fighting nightmares of murder, helps Petra see beyond her family's prejudices. When a black woman is struck by a car, however, Petra's rushed conversion to fervent good Samaritan-ism may be a bit too convenient. The lovers skip town and marry, but Petra's enraged father won't let them go easily. This novel's hodgepodge of subplots hiding spies, thwarted romance, systemic racism ultimately coalesces. Hunter, a former Africa Correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, ably captures South Africa. Plain prose and dialogue keep the pace motoring, and the simply told espionage storyline may appeal to Ian Fleming fans. There is daring, intrigue, and an ugly current of racism, but make no mistake, this is a love story at its core. Austere and well-told; an unlikely mix of espionage, apartheid, and love on the run." --Kirkus Reviews

"With a nod to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, Frederic Hunter beautifully explores the subtle and sensual power of love as a counter force to the diseases of racism and war. Though set in South Africa, with nightmare flashbacks to the Congo when Lamumba was assassinated, the suspenseful narrative resonates with deeply moving timeliness." --Joan Baum, NPR Reviewer

"Author Frederic Hunter brings that seething to life in the travels of two people who should never meet; one young and innocent, the other older and guilt-ridden, and both of them guilty in a world that's bound to a seriously flawed status quo. The author's depiction of their road trip brings towns and people, scenery and countries to life. Well-pitched third person narration adds a haunting sense of the characters' isolation to this novel, even as well-toned dialog brings each scene to life. Institutionalized murder and brutality become ironically less distant, more inevitable perhaps, while reader and characters try to distance themselves. Constantly surprising, often terrifying, hauntingly and oddly romantic, Love In A Time Of Apartheid is a hard book to put down and an impossible one to forget. --Shelia Deeth, Shelia's Reviews

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