Ubuntu

This exciting thriller is so well researched and sticks so close to the truth about apartheid that it is difficult to sort the fact from the fiction. The two blend beautifully into a powerful story about an Afrikaner human rights lawyer (Liefling) who, with the help of a black eyewitness (Gideon), seeks to bring an unrepentant apartheid-era death squad leader before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and win a conviction. Liefling and Gideon soon realize their pursuit of justice could cost them their lives. Description of characters and the story: Makhado -- the African warrior whose inflexible sense of justice is severely tested when he learns the bitter truth about his beloved son. Liefling -- the Afrikaner human rights lawyer whose loyalty to her martyred activist father leads her to risk everything -- including her long-suffering mother's love -- in order to help black families whose loved ones were killed by apartheid-era death squads. Kruger -- the unrepentant believer in Baaskap (white supremacy) who will stop at nothing to realize his dream of an Afrikaner-only homeland -- even if it means igniting a race war. Thando -- the former guerilla leader struggling to uplift her impoverished community even as she is tortured by guilt over having ordered the execution of the brother of the man she loves. Gideon -- the schoolteacher who seeks redemption for a dark secret by risking his life to expose one of apartheid's most ruthless death squads. Freda -- the disillusioned verligte (liberal) torn between love for her daughter, Liefling, and for the man who wants to kill that daughter. Shaka -- the askari (double agent) and assassin bent on revenge against those who destroyed his soul. David -- the Jewish lawyer who's chosen to live in a dangerous ghetto as he searches for those who tortured and murdered his activist black girlfriend. These are among the memorable characters in Mark Mathabane's electrifying thriller set in the new South Africa. Using as background the controversial Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Mathabane -- as he did in Kaffir Boy, his best-selling memoir about growing up under apartheid -- makes the political and racial intensely human and gripping. In Ubuntu, Mathabane's formidable skills as a storyteller are at their best. He's painted a convincing picture of a vibrant and turbulent post-apartheid South Africa -- from the explosive opening scene of a carjacking in downtown Johannesburg to the heart-stopping final scene of a chase through a jungle in the Venda homeland. Ubuntu's plot and characters illuminate better than any history book or newspaper headline the corrupting evil of apartheid, the atrocities committed by ruthless death squads in its defense, and the heroism of many of its opponents, black and white. A tour-de-force adventure and love story that will leave you breathless with its many twists, Ubuntu combines fact and fiction in a way that informs and inspires as it entertains with page-turning suspense. Ubuntu is a powerful and unforgettable saga of divided loyalties, deadly treachery, forbidden love, unspeakable horrors, and heroic courage of individual South Africans who dare to reach across a deep racial divide to save their country's soul by bringing to justice one of the apartheid era's most ruthless killers. Note: Mark Mathabane dedicated this novel to his father, who died of cancer in 1994. The dedication reads: To my father, who confronted life without flinching – in the true spirit of Venda warriors. You were often hard to understand and difficult to get along with, but you taught me much about responsibility and honor. And to all the freedom fighters who were murdered by apartheid security forces. Many of you lie buried in unmarked graves dug by your cowardly killers who still walk free in the democratic South Africa you died for. But the story of your dauntless courage and sacrifice in the liberation struggle lives on.