Rating: Not rated
Tags: Biography, Lang:en
Summary
The classic story of life in apartheid South Africa. Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and
schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa's most desperate
ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were
his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the
hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in
days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the
courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself
up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an
American university. This extraordinary memoir of life under apartheid is a
triumph of the human spirit over hatred and unspeakable
degradation, for Mark Mathabane did what no physically and
psychologically battered "Kaffir" from the rat-infested alleys
of Alexandra was supposed to do - he escaped to tell about
it. Mark Mathabane was born and raised in the ghetto of
Alexandra in South Africa. He is the author of
Kaffir Boy,
Kaffir Boy in America,
Love in Black and White,
African Women: Three Generations,
Miriam's Song, and
The Proud Liberal. He lectures at schools and colleges
nationwide on race relations, education, and our common
humanity. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon. **