Sunday, March 09, 2008

a reading list for South Africa

On the last leg of his trip from Cairo to Cape Town Paul Theroux stops to visit South African novelist Nadine Gordimer at her house in Johannesburg. Making dinner conversation Theroux asks, “’What should I read to understand South Africa better?’”

Nadine and dinner guests Raks Seakhoa, a poet, and Maureen Isaacson, literary editor of the local newspaper “suggested, among others, The Peasants’ Revolt by Govan Mbeki, Hugh Lewin’s Bandiet, Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda, The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter by Albie Sachs, and poems by Don Mattera and Jeremy Cronin.”

source: Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux

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