The Assassin : A Story of Race and Rage in the Land of Apartheid

Van Woerden, Henk

ISBN 10: 0805066314 / ISBN 13: 9780805066319

Published by Holt & Company, Henry, 2001

About this Item

Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Seller Inventory # 39541196-6

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Assassin : A Story of Race and Rage in the Land of Apartheid
• Publisher: Holt & Company, Henry
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805066314
• ISBN 13: 9780805066319
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 0.721 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

The untold and heartbreaking account of the man who killed South Africa's architect of apartheid, one of the most dramatic political assassinations in modern history.

If ever one individual could be said to have embodied the tragedy of apartheid, Dimitri Tsafas would be that man. At a time when color was all, Tsafas, bastard son of a Greek father and an African mother, was untouchable -- too black for the whites and too white for the blacks. Stateless, homeless, and loveless, on September 6, 1966, he entered South Africa's Parliament and stabbed Prime Minister Hrik Verwoerd four times with a long knife, killing the architect of apartheid, the architect of Tsafas's misery.

Now, in a masterful restoration, Henk Van Woerden re-creates the assassin's cursed life and the impossibly torn society that created him. Unwanted by black or white family, denied the right to settle wherever he turns, Tsafas drifts from sea to prison, from kitchen hand to street vor, from Mozambique to Greece and Canada, and back to South Africa. With sensitivity and passion, Van Woerden traces the inexorable road that leads to Verwoerd's death, and reveals that the assassination -- a resounding blow in the war against apartheid -- was not the random act of a crazed individual, but perhaps the only choice left in a country itself gone mad. Powerful, tragic, and compelling, The Assassin is both a devastating indictment of oppression and a cautionary tale of the explosive power of racial hatred everywhere.

About the Author

Henk Van Woerden, a prizewinning Dutch author, was born in the Netherlands in 1947. He moved to South Africa as a child, studied fine art at the University of Cape Town, and in 1968 returned to Amsterdam, where he lives today. The Assassin has been nominated for two major Dutch awards and translated into five languages.