An Afrikaner crime reporter returns home to face the evil and complex legacy of South African apartheid in " a witness-bearing act of the rarest courage" (Michael Kerr).
Rian Malan's classic work of reportage, My Traitor's Heart is at once beautiful, horrifying, and profound in ways that earned him comparisons to Michael Herr and Ryszard Kapuscinski, and inspired the London Times to call him "South Africa's Hunter S. Thompson." An Afrikaner, Malan is the scion of a centuries-old clan deeply involved in the creation of apartheid. As a young crime reporter, he covered the atrocities of an undeclared race war and ultimately fled the country, unhinged by what he had seen.
Eight years later, he returns to confront his own demons, and those that are tearing his country apart. With unflinching candor, Malan explores the grizzly violence and perverse rationalizations at the root of his nation's identity.
Written in the final years of apartheid's bloody collapse, My Traitor's Heart still resonates, offering a "passionate, blazingly honest testament" to the darkest recesses of the black and white South African psyches. "Those who read it will never again see South Africa in quite the same way" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review).
Autorentext
"A tremendous book about candor, honor, and race, a witness-bearing act of the rarest courage. No one who reads it could ever forget it.? -Michael Herr "Here is truth-telling at its most exemplary and courageous. The remorseless exercise of a reporter's anguished conscience gives us a South Africa we thought we knew all about: but we knew nothing.? -John le Carré "Malan is bent on uncovering another level altogether of South African life, and he does so beautifully. . . . He sharply expands our understanding of his strange, strange country's complexities.? -William Finnegan, The New York Times "My Traitor's Heart grips you by the throat and won't let go.? -Peter Gorner, The Chicago Tribune "A passionate, blazingly honest testament . . . Those who read it will never again see South Africa in quite the same way.? -Christopher Hope, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A book that is part investigative reportage, part personal confession, and in all respects remarkable. . . . Penetrating, comprehensive, and-in its relentless accumulation of ghastly detail-heartbreaking.? -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World "Here, as in nothing I've read before, is the demotic voice of black and Afrikaner South Africa. . . . Triumphant.? -Salman Rushdie "...an unflinching and intimate story of a man fighting against injustice in his homeland, even as he must come to terms with his own family's poisonous role there.? -Austin Merrill, Vanity Fair
Klappentext
"Here is truth-telling at its most exemplary and courageous. The remorseless exercise of a reporter's anguished conscience gives us a South Africa we thought we knew all about: but we knew nothing.” -John le Carré My Traitor's Heart is an astonishing work of reportage, at once beautiful, horrifying, and profound-a book unlike any other about South Africa. Rian Malan is an Afrikaner, scion of a centuries-old clan deeply involved in the creation of apartheid. As a young crime reporter, Malan covered the atrocities of an undeclared race war and ultimately fled the country, unhinged by what he had seen. Eight years later, he returns to confront his own demons, and those that are tearing his country apart. Written in the final years of apartheid's bloody collapse, My Traitor's Heart still resonates, offering a chilling-but ultimately redemptive-vision of the darkest recesses of the black and white South African psyches.
