National Public Radio is running a series of stories profiling South Africa's progress from apartheid to democracy and it reminded me of a couple of South African novels I've read. The first, DISGRACE by J. M. Coetzee is a Booker Prize winner and tells the story of David Lurie, a 25 year old technical school teacher who is fired after an affair with a student comes to light. Somewhat adrift, he travels to his daughter's farm on the Eastern Cape, planning to write a book. However, things on the farm don't go as smoothly as David had hoped. At only 220 pages, the novel deals with an amazing number of themes such as crime in South Africa, authority and it's abuses, race, sex, family, disgrace and redemption.
THE HOUSE GUN by Nadine Gordimer deals with many of the same themes, especially South Africa's complicated history of official racial discrimination and it's attempts to move past it. Harold and Claudia are successful professionals whose lives are turned upside down when their son is accused of murdering one of his housemates. They struggle to support their son while trying to pin down the exact events that landed him in prison. As in Disgrace, South Africa's high crime rate is a major theme, along with the country's justice system and it's complex racial history.
No comments:
Post a Comment