Of an estimated 1 billion people in the world who are trapped in a cycle ofgrinding poverty and despair, a disproportionate number live in sub-Saharan Africa.In this innovative and challenging account, Moeletsi Mbeki analyses the plight of Africa andconcludes that the fault lies not with the mass of its people but with itsrulers – the political elites who contrive to keep their fellow citizens poorwhile enriching themselves.Concentrating mainly on South Africa, his country of birth, and Zimbabwe, hishome when he was in exile, Mbeki tells a tale of lost opportunities andextinguished hopes.Yet Mbeki is no Afro-pessimist. Along with his candid exposé ofthe problems, he poses some suggestions about what needs to be done to breakthe stranglehold of the African elites on political power and to setsub-Saharan Africa once more on the road to development.
“Blood, sex, music, disease, miracles,murder, poverty, race, profit, beauty. These are the narratives ofpost-apartheid South Africathat hang on Manny’s walls. They are bewildering and illogical, impossible andbizarre, and still they cohere—because whatever the country is, it is not London or Durham or the EastVillageon a humid evening in June.”
In 1950’s South Africa,thecolour of a killer’s skin matters more than justice . . .
When anAfrikaans police captain is murdered in a small South African countrytown,Detective Emmanuel Cooper must navigate his way through the labyrinthine racial and social divisions that split the community. And as the National Partyintroduces the laws to support the system of apartheid in the early 1950’s,Emmanuel struggles – much like Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko – to remain agood man in the face of astonishing power. In a considered but very commercial novel,Malla Nunn combines a compelling plot with a thoughtful and complex portrayal of a fascinating period of history, illustrating the human desiresthat drive us all, regardless of race, colour or creed.
