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My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience Books
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Rating:  -
I have attempted to write a review of this book several times, but failed as I find myself gripped with the same conflicting emotions that Malan so succintly portrays in the book.
Having been born and brought up very close to the Msinga Valley (the subject of the closing chapter of My Traitor's Heart) in the heart of Kwa Zulu Natal, many of the names and people are known to me. Some of those people are the heroes of the book, others are the villains. I mention this only in so much as I can verify sufficient of the authenticity of Malan's very personal, cathartic journey.
Many others have written a synopsis of Malan's book. If you want to know about the story line - there are many reviews to be read. However, for me the review is a personal experience. Malan's catharsis is paralleled by my own! No other book I've read is as descriptive of the madness that is Africa. A madness that you both love and hate at the same time. A madness that drives you away and yet draws you in simultaneously. And finally a madness that drives you to the edge of reason, yet (as the story of Creina Alcock unfolds) drives you to the reason for being.
No matter where you start on the political spectrum (extreme left, extreme right or somewhere in the middle), you find yourself driven to the other end of the scale and back again, on a roller coaster of emotion. For Malan, his beginning point is 'extreme left'. His end point, is, I suspect, 'disillusioned'.
I recommend this book as an extremely well written, witty, sad, mad book. If you want to understand Africa (insofar as anyone can 'understand' Africa), this is the book to read.
But reader beware - it is a deeply disturbing, very graphic read!
Rating: -
How does one explain the intricacies of Apartheid-era South Africa, from the political turmoil to the constant tribal warring? Primitive thought? Anger spurred by poverty and hunger? Ancient beliefs conflicting with modernity? Racism? There is no one simple answer, and this book does an incredible job of elucidating this. It is harrowing, horrific, and incredibly sad, but it is all real and should be read by all. The story of an incredibly violent and hopeless place told through the eyes of Rian Malan, a descendant of one of the first founders of Apartheid thought, as he retells his life story and searches his soul for an answer, travelling from white affluence to the slums, from America to the soul-crushing gold mines, from the base of a dwindling black political movement to the outermost reaches of the arid rural kwaZulu, meeting whites consumed by intense racial hate and those who tried to love so hard that it destroyed their lives, and telling their life stories along with his, to create an incredibly rich and horrifying mosaic.
Rating: -
When I read this book ten plus years ago it blew me away, both as political and narrative non-fiction, and as excellent writing. Malan's voice and humanity perfectly tell an important story. The second reading was as good, if not better.
Rating:  -
White liberal draft-dodger hard at work. He's a good writer and the book's a painful look into the heart of a white liberal. My admiration goes rather to those who fought to defend their country.... but it's an insight into the tortured soul of a typical liberal wooftah. Why people put themselves thru all this inner torment I have no idea - have a beer and get over it, bloke! If you'd just done your time in the armed forces like pretty much every other south african had to do instead of taking the chicken run, you wouldn;t be going thru all this turmoil.
Rating: -
Before a recent visit to S. Africa, this book was recommended as an introduction to the political climate in S. Africa, especially after Apartheid. This very personal account told by Rian Malan, whose ancestors were directly responsible for the formation of the Apartheid society, traces his teenage rebellion against Apartheid, his career as a liberal newspaper reporter and his ultimate rejection of the violence that the new government has spawned. Be prepared for graphic descriptions of violence committed by both whites and blacks.
A good introduction to the complicated history of S. Africa and leaves the reader with questions regarding the future of that sad country.
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