Kaffir Boy: The True Story Of A Black Youths Coming Of Age In Apartheid South Africa

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Summary: It changed me
Review: History has always been my most hated subject. Text book after text book informing me with important dates and facts which always seem so cold and heartless. The year we studided the Civil war I wanted to understand and feel what it had been like for the young men sent to fight on the front lines. However with a sentence like "the men ranged in age from eighteen to thirty" it was difficult. Kaffir Boy changed the way i felt about history. This book not only made the history of Apartheid come to life in my eyes but it ignited feeling and passion inside of me as i read each page. Discriptions like "With almost three years of constant police terror behind me i had now become, at seven years old, so conditioned to expecting predawn police raids that each time my mother awakened me in the middle of the night, i would spring up and ask, Are they here?" painted a vivid picture of this young boy, Mark's horror and confusion at the age of seven. I could not have put it down even if i wanted to. To this day Kaffir Boy is a part of me. I fell in love with this little boy who made the phase "never give up" come to life. This book has a soul and you will feel it when you read it. I have told all my friends and family that this is a must read, and i feel that now i should tell you. If you dont read this book you will truly miss out on somthing amazing.

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Summary: The One That Got Away.........
Review: Mark Mathabane's book Kaffir Boy is deeply harsh and emotional. We see this firsthand in the name. Kaffir is an infidel, a derrogatory remark, much in the same context as words derived from slavery in America. From the preface to the last injustice, this novel has more shock value than even the most twisted erotica. If we were reading an account from post-civil war America this story would fit perfectly, however, the book is a true account that occured in the 1970s in South Africa. Mathabane describes the incredible strength and wisdom of his mother and her determination for her children to get an education. The injustices that the families face are heartbreaking. Mark Mathabane is one of millions that broke out of the system and the story is not finished. Kaffir Boy in America is the sequel, and another must-read. To read this book and not feel impacted by how much we take for granted is to be inhuman.

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Summary: Survival
Review: Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane is truly a compellingly authentic biography. Mark and his fourth class family grew up in Alexandra, South Africa and this is his remarkable memoir of life under apartheid there. This terrifying story describes his struggle to survive under poverty and inhumane conditions, with a tormented father who would beat him for not listening to tribal ways, and a mother set on educating Mark no matter what the sacrifice.
When Mark discovers tennis his world turns around. Practicing everyday, he still manages to be the top student in his class. Mark would have never guessed that playing tennis would fulfill his dream about going to America, but when American people hear about Mark they are willing to pay his fees to go there as well as college tuition.
This biography describes a black person's life so well and from a different perspective. Since I have only read books about Africans through white people's eyes, I have never really understood the pain blacks went through under the system of apartheid. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in an important piece of African history, and a truly remarkable story of a survivor.

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Summary: required reading
Review: This book should be read by everyone, because it is a great story of success in the face of great adversity. When I originally read this book, South Africa was still in the grip of apartheid. Fortunately, the book is no longer a cry for its end, yet it is still a powerful story of perserverance.
The book, thankfully, is graphic at times but this, of course, is to show what Mathabane came from and was able to overcome. I find it somewhat comical when people read a book about overcoming great adversity and complain because the "before" picture isn't Sunday school. Read this book if you really want an inspiring and accurate social history of apartheid South Africa.

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Summary: Too graphic and violent for me to recommend
Review: This was assigned summer reading for my 9th grader and fortunately, I read it first! I do not feel that such graphic desciptions of sex and violence are necessary to portray the circumstances in which Mathabane grew up. I found it a pity, actually, because the story is inspiring yet I could not get past the grapics in the first section. Needless to say, our 9th grader did NOT read this book. As important as it is to educate about the horrors in this world, I firmly believe that if youngsters are given this much graphic exposure we are perpetrating the crime upon their souls. Why can't writers find a way to express themselves in a higher more noble fashion? Then their important stories could be read by all. I can't believe that not one review mentioned this problem!

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Summary: Amanda-TVHS
Review: Mark Mathabane does a remarkable job explaining the worst nightmares a young black boy from South Africa can face. He grows up in a ghetto neighborhood, where police raids occur in the homes of blacks repeatidly. His family grows up in a shack, with barely any food and clothing. But remarkably, he is a very talented and educated young boy. He scores in the highest percentile in his classes and has a dream to play tennis in America. He finally wins a tennis scholarship and leaves for America to live in freedom.

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Summary: Kaffir Boy excellent book!
Review: I recently read this book for a summer reading requirement for my sophomore year of high school, and I found it to be a very good description of apartheid in south africa. This book follows a poor black child and his family from about 8 to 18 years of age. I would reccommend this book to anyone intereested in apartheid, or just looking for a good book to read. No matter who you are this book will touch your heart to know what torture blacks in south africa went through during apartheid.

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Summary: The archy hurts everyone
Review: Wow. I can't believe Mark Mathabane lived to write this book. Kaffir Boy is truly a tale of survival. Even more incredible to me is that he came away from his nightmarish childhood in South Africa unscathed enough to write about the experience in very lucid and calm prose. I am guessing if it were me in his place I would be beating on pillows in psychotherapy sessions for the rest of my life. Or taking some serious antidepressant medication. My interpretation of this book is that it reveals how patriarchal/matriarchal structures damage and destroy everyone that they touch. Obviously, these structures dominated South Africa's Judeo-Christian white minority and African tribal culture when Mathabane was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. He has done a wonderful job at revealing how ugly the shame, violence, fear, and exploitation characteristic of patriarchal structures truly are. Everyone abuses everyone else from the top down in apartheid-archy South Africa. Unless you are fortunate enough to be a "bass" (white person in a position of authority), you suffer endless torments and tortures. In an odd way, Kaffir Boy reminded me of Orwell's 1984. Scarily, patriarchal structures allow situations like apartheid to happen in our world right now. All in all, I found this book to be well-crafted and beautifully written. The characters are very round and the entire plot just felt very real to me. A few criticisms: On a some occasions, the writing becomes very didactic--as if the characters are just mouthing Mathabane's philosophy about a this or that situation in South Africa, not being characters in a story. And, the character of Mathabane's mother sometimes confused me. On the one hand, she was supposed to be an illiterate person. But on some pages she came across like a university professor. Odd. Also, the character of Mathabane's father, very much prevalent for the first one hundred or so pages just seems to disapppear after that. And the book seemed to read very slowly for me. It is 350 pages, but often seemed longer. However, these are minor criticisms. This is a great book to read if you don't know much about South Africa's system of apartheid in the 1960s and 1970s and it is just a moving story altogether. As Mathabane says on the first page of the book, "Amandla! Awethu! (Power is ours!)." Words that every human being should feel proud to speak, regardless of race, culture, gender, or age.

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Summary: An amazing account of the strength of a child...
Review: I picked this book up a few days ago at an autograph signing and have been unable to put it down since I purchased it. This story is so well written that it is almost unbelievable. This is a must read!

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Summary: Triumph of the human spirit
Review: This is an autobiographical account of life in South Africa during the days of apartheid.It puts a human face to the horrors of apartheid.It is the story of how a boy and his family cope with life in the shantytowns that blacks were forced to live in.It details his experience during police raids,riots during the apartheid struggle and how the system limited the lives of 80% of South African citizens.He also details his experience in school and how he was saved from a life of drudgery and no opportunities by a tennis scholarship to the united states.It is also the story of family.It details the triumph of the human spirit.I recommend this book to anybody interested in knowing what life actually was during apartheid.