Now in a cheaper Vintage edition — same pages as as the Penguin edition. André Brink’s fine novel. Ben Du Toit is an ordinary man, a white school teacher in suburban Johannesburg, he has lived his life secure in the belief that the government is fair and benevolent. When a black friend of his is arrested and then “commits suicide” in police custody, his investigations draws Du Toit into a morass of lies, corruption, and officially condoned murder. His quest for the truth costs Du Toit his job, family and friends, but it earns him a newfound commitment to justice in a radically unjust society. “André Brinks vidunderlige bog om Sydafrika ... et ganske fremragende udgangspunkt for diskussion.” (COB Handelsskolen)(362 standard pages)
Level: A/B

A novel by Nadine Gordimer. Paul Bannerman, an ecologist in South Africa, believes he understands his life — his vocation, his marriage etc. But when he is diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, after surgery, prescribed treatment that will leave him radioactive and for a period a danger to others, the fragility of his new existence makes him begin to question his life for the first time. He moves in with his parents to protect his wife and young son from radiation and as he recuperates in the garden of his childhood home, he enters a process that will irrevocably change not only his life but the lives of his wife and parents. He is especially struck by the contradiction in values between his work as a conservationist and that of his wife Benni, an advertising agency executive. His mother is transformed by the strange state of her son's existence to face her own past. Meanwhile, projects to build a nuclear reactor and drain vital wetlands preoccupy Paul as if he were at work. When he recovers his parents go to Mexico to fulfill the archaeological vocation his businessman father Adrian sacrificed to support his family. (187 pages)
Level: A+/Especially mature students/Reading groups

Nelson Mandela, the first African politician to acquire a world following, remains in the 21st century an iconic figure. What are the sources of his almost mythic appeal? Did Mandela deliberately create the status of political hero that he now enjoys? This highly praised biography examines these questions in detail. It presents a range of fresh insights about the shaping of Mandela's personality and public persona, from his childhood days and early activism, through his long years of imprisonment, to his presidency of the new South Africa. The book emphasizes the interplay between Mandela's public career and his private world and shows how his heroic status was a product both of his leading position within the anti-apartheid movement and of his own deliberate efforts to supply a form of quasi-messianic leadership for that movement. Mandela's huge international appeal is described as a compelling and unusual cocktail: of the sacred and the secular — of traditional African values and global media savvy — and of human vulnerablilty, interwoven with the grand narrrative of liberation. Author: Tom Lodge (274 pages)
Level: Gymnasiet/Library/Depot

Contents: 1. Childhood and Upbringing;  2. Becoming a Notable;  3. Volunteer-in-Chief;  4. Making a Messiah;  5. Trials;  6. Prisoner 466/64;  7. Leading from Prison;  8. Messianic Politics and the Transition to Democracy;  9. Embodying the Nation