KAFFIR BOY IN AMERICA: AN ENCOUNTER WITH APARTHEID

Mathabane, Mark, Kaffir Boy in America

Kaffir Boy (1984), one of the best books ever written about apartheid, became a bestseller everywhere but in South Africa, where it is banned. This absorbing sequel, about Mathabane's life in the U.S. since he arrived here at age 18 in 1978 on a tennis scholarship, describes his painful experiences at three colleges in one year and in American society generally. He recalls his editorship of a college paper, disenchantment with the Columbia School of Journalism, encounters with racism, threats to his life, living on a shoestring budget, speaking out against racism, his decisions to become a writer, live in North Carolina and marry a white woman, his success (with Oprah Winfrey's help) in bringing members of his family on a visit to America and in arranging for some of his siblings to remain here to study. Mathabane is a remarkable human being: responsible, committed, reasonable, level-headed, humane, understanding and empathetic. He tells a wonderful, inspiring story and he tells it well.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This is a sequel to Kaffir Boy ( LJ 4/15/86), a best-selling account of Mathabane's youth in a black township in South Africa. It deals with his life in America as a student, writer, and outspoken opponent of apartheid. Like many sequels, this one lacks the power of the original. Kaffir Boy vividly details the horrors of growing up black in a society premised on radical racial discrimination; its wrenching story virtually grabs the reader by the throat. The sequel, in which the author describes both his trials and successes in coping with and ultimately taking advantage of American mobility, pales in comparison. Still, this work does nicely describe the author's ambivalence toward the United States--both America's lure and its continuing racial problems. Generally well written, it is appropriate for most academic and public libraries.
- Anthony O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.