Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing
Review: This book is an investigation into the attitudes of a liberal who was raised in South Africa. In the book, Malan tells us that his original charge was to write the history of his racist ancestors, who were among the first Boer settlers in the region. But when Malan began his project, he found he needed to first explore and develop his own perspective on race in South Africa before he could begin. And once he began doing this, he never really got around to the history project. The book is divided into 3 sections. In the first, Malan describes his own childhood and adolescence, leading up to his forced flight from South Africa, with a major focus on his youthful love for Blacks (especially in the abstract). The second part of the book details a number of violent murders that Malan investigated upon his return to South Africa in 1986 to write this book. In this section, Malan describes the intense violence that was occurring in South Africa at the time, and how all Whites, even doctors providing humanitarian services in the townships, became targets for Black rage. He also explores violence between rival Black political groups. In the closing section, Malan visits a White woman named Creina Alcock, who lived on the border of Msanga, a tribal homeland, where she and her husband had struggled to build a sustainable rural development project with the local Blacks. The woman was widowed after her husband was killed while trying to negotiate peace talks during a tribal disturbance in Msanga. The book doesn't have a strong narrative thread- -instead it seems that Malan was trying to communicate some of his own confusion and ambivalence about racial questions by presenting so many stories and sides of the picture, and flipping rapidly from one to the next. The loose organization is effective to some degree; the reader slowly comes to understand the enormity and complexity of South Africa's problems. Yes, many Whites provoked anger from Blacks by their abominable behavior and laws. Blacks in turn responded with violence that was so overwhelming that even those Whites who tried as hard as they could to do the right thing were in mortal danger. And the worst and most senseless violence seemed to occur in Black communities that had no White involvement at all. The entire society was so focused on violence that as one White living on a farm in a rural area told Malan "The guy with the bigger stick wins." In closing with Creina Alcock's story, Malan tries to leave us with a little hope. He argues that Alcock's and her late husband's love for their community has made a marginal difference in the social structure, despite the ongoing attacks on them and thefts of their property by children they had adopted and raised as their own, and even the murder of Alcock's husband. With the infinitesimally small improvements that the Alcocks managed to make in their community by giving their entire lives over to the project, how many millions more Alcocks would it take to turn such a country around, and where might they come from?
Rating:
Summary: A haunting view of South Africa
Review: This book is not perfect--but it is very, very good. It is also quite horrific in the violence it describes so graphically. I must admit that I questioned the veracity of some of the stories because they are so extreme. The last chapter was a disappointment given how gripping the entire book was up until then.
Despite all this, it is definitely a must-read if you are going to South Africa or if you are interested in South Africa.
Rating: 
Summary: Illuminating, Inspiring
Review: This book was the most honest, searing account of any personal journey I have ever read. I feel as though I should read this book again a few more times in order to truly absorb its message and infomation; I feel simply saturated with all that I have begun to appreciate about So. Africa. Malan dissected apartheid to its marrow, with an intensity that was sometimes hard to stomach. I also really appreciated how Malan delved into the complicated intra-racial fighting, violence and murder (that still goes on today I'm sure) in the townships and tribal "homelands" such as Msinga. This brought to mind "intra-kind" fighting all over the world...such as Black gang members killing Black neighbors and rivals in American cities, Catholic vs. Protestant violence in Ireland, etc,...you can find examples in EVERY nation. I disagree with the previous reviewer who seemed to indicate that Malan's book somehow lets Europeans "off the hook" and assuages their guilt about aparthied by discussing the fighting among the (Black)Africans. I think it took alot of courage for Malan to honestly address the dynamics among all of the people and tribes of So. Africa, and to confront a certain pervasive liberal attitude. As a Black female american, I have encountered White people who always seemed to regard Black people as endlessly noble victims, and then are emotionally stymied and stuck when they are gripped with fear when walking in a Black ghetto, or experience a mugging or crime perpetrated by a Black person, and then struggle mightily with a powerfully racist internal reaction. This is an excellent book which explores the complexities of the human condition; body, heart, mind, and soul. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: The mystery of racism in my own heart
Review: You should read Rian Malan's book, My traitor's heart. This book explores how a person may act incongruously at various times, specifically in regard to race. It asks, for instance, how a man might (at great peril) love a woman of a race other than his own and yet, at a later time in his life, slaughter persons of that woman's race. Or, how may a young man have sympathy with a struggling class of people and yet have great fear and antipathy toward them. I read My traitor's heart a bit as I would read a mystery novel. "How will it turn out?", I wondered, with great anticipation. The condition of the author's soul, I felt, would be determined by the story's outcome. But also as I read it I was faced with ambiguities on racial issues within my own life.
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