⇒ PDF Red Dust TV TieIn Gillian Slovo 9781860499159 Books

Red Dust TV TieIn Gillian Slovo 9781860499159 Books

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Red Dust TV TieIn Gillian Slovo 9781860499159 Books

got it for a class, but i still got a lot out of it.


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Red Dust TV TieIn Gillian Slovo 9781860499159 Books Reviews

Sarah Barcant is a successful young lawyer in New York who grew up in Smitrivier, South Africa. One day she gets a call from Ben Hoffman, a retired lawyer who used to be Sarah's professional mentor, asking her to come back to Smitrivier to take up a case. And so after fourteen years, Sarah returns to the town where she grew up to do Ben a favour because she thinks she owes him so much. A policeman, Pieter Muller, is suspected of having killed James Sizela's son Steve during the Apartheid. Muller's culpability has been a belief in Smitrivier for thirteen years, ever since Steve was arrested on Pieter Muller's orders and then disappeared. So now the Truth Commission is James's last chance to find his son's body and have him properly buried. The timing appears to be perfect since the Truth Commission is about to deal with the jailed policeman Dirk Hendricks who applied for amnesty for the torture of Alex Mpondo, now an MP in the South African government. The plan is to use Alex Mpondo's presence at the hearing to threaten Hendricks that unless he reveals Pieter Muller's complicity in the murder of Steve Sizela, he may not get his amnesty. But the search for the truth is going to be far more arduous than Sarah imagined - perhaps even an impossible task.

Mrs Slovo casts a merciless look at contemporary South Africa where heroism and perfidy are no longer distinct, where new truths are as painful as old lies, where torturers, once heroes, are now victims. An excellent novel which shows the absurd relationship between aggressors and victims and the power between the torturers and the tortured.
Since 1985, during The Emergency that tore open the façade of apartheid in South Africa, the citizens of the township of Smitsrivier have waited for the Truth Hearings. The hearings are scheduled to facilitate the amnesty of political prisoners, usually former policemen and other government agents who perpetrated violence against the blacks. In return for telling all of the circumstances of torture and other brutality, including murder, the Commission will decide whether to allow amnesty for each current appeal.
The central figure of the Truth Commission in this case is Dirk Hendricks, a former policeman applying for amnesty for the beating and torture of Alex Mpondo. Hendricks is the critical link between Mpondo and Steve Sizela, Alex's compatriot, who was also arrested and beaten, only Steve's body was never recovered. Alex holds the key to Steve's murder, but has been unable to remember anything clearly since his beating, whether Hendricks participated in Steve's murder or has knowledge of who actually did the deed. Alex engages in a dangerous dance with his tormentor, allowing Hendricks to prick his memory with questions and insinuations, hoping to remember. At issue is Alex's participation without allowing his further victimization.
A successful young New York lawyer, Sarah Barcant, is summoned to Smitsrivier to manage Alex's case. Her mentor, Ben Hoffman, who is dying, places a phone call requesting her help. He knows he cannot be refused, due to the ties of the past. Sarah and Ben hope, as part of the process, to uncover Steve's murderer and ascertain where he is buried, that his still grieving parents may see their son properly interred.
Using Sarah as a vehicle, Alex confronts Dirk Hendricks, willing to suffer the indignity of facing his tormentor all over again when they are face to face. But Alex is outraged when Hendricks declares himself a sufferer of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder while "doing his job", a critical factor in Hendricks' defense. Hendricks assumes the mantle of victim, giving a brilliant performance before the Committee while on the witness stand. Sarah's task, given Alex's newly awakening insights, is to unmask the policeman for the monster that he really is. This will necessitate drawing out the personality Hendricks seeks to hide from his audience, the darkness waiting to surface.
The denouement of the murderer and restoration of Steve Sizela's body to his parents serve to begin a healing process in only one of the towns so devastated by long years of apartheid, a land too long immersed in fear and hatred. Racial tension and animosity still exist in Smitsrivier, where black and white exist side by side, but in a more subtle and insidious form. Yet Slovo's South Africa is a gorgeous and fascinating country, ripe with promise, reaping the rewards of a revolution against inequality and repression of the human spirit. The task is to harness that great source of humanity for the good of a country whose past cannot be allowed to govern the future. The idyllic prose is as rich as this vast land in transition, an important contribution toward the understanding of a new South Africa. Luan Gaines/2003.
I read this book for the first time when I was in South Africa, and it was a very intense experience. There is so much truth to the emotions this book brings about, and although they are difficult to bear they are essential to understanding the country South Africa was and how it became the country it is today.
The writing is engaging and authentic. There is little sentimentality, but clear empathy for all parties. It made me want to read up more on the Truth Commission.
I actually had to read this novel for a literature class I am taking. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. As far as mysteries go, Slovo does a great job of pulling you along as she creates secrets and mysteries that you want to find the resolution to. I really enjoyed this and would recommend it to those who love a good mystery, especially.
I feel as if i was there and have been dragged through the process, washed, fed through the mangle and hung out to dry.
got it for a class, but i still got a lot out of it.