Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography–The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa
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- ISBN13: 9780684848280
- Condition: New
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Product Description
Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every additional child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family tree and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the dirt and humiliation to win a erudition to an American university.
This extraordinary memoir of life under apartheid is a triumph of the human spirit over hatred and unspeakable degradation. For Mark Mathabane did what no physically and psychologically battered “Kaffir” from the rat-infested alleys of Alexandra was supposed to do — he escaped to tell about it.Amazon.com Review
Kaffir Boy does for apartheid-era South Africa what Richard Wright’s Black Boy did for the segregated American South. In stark prose, Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside Johannesburg–and how he escaped its horrors. Hard work and faith in education played key roles, and Mathabane eventually won a tennis erudition to an American university. This is not, needless to say, an opportunity afforded to many of the poor blacks who make up most of South Africa’s population. And yet Mathabane reveals their troubled world on these pages in a way that only a name who has lived this life can.
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Kaffir Boy
The book, “Kaffir Boy” was not a excellent book. I did not like the book. I did not like the book because of the word choice and plot.
The word choice and plot in this book are not the best in quality. This book has a fantastic amount of word choice. The writing is very descriptive. For an example, “I coughed and spit, and the spittle was all red with blood.” Plus, It talks about “poop and urine” being dumped on his body. The word choice made me want to throw up. The plot in the tale was ok.
The tale was about kid who grows up in a world of despise, so he wants to go to America. All Mark does is go to school, play tennis, deal with his dad, and run from the peri-urben. The peri-urben are what we call police. All the peri-urbin do is try to bust people for not having there passbook in order. The passbook is a small black book that the black people must have. It tells the peri-urbin if you are married, have a job, if you pay your taxes, and if you have any kids. The peri-urben gave Mark the most distress besides his dad, who kept nagging him to become a man.
My opinion and recommendation about this book are very poor. My opinion about the book is two thumbs down. I did not have a favorite part in the book. The whole book was poor. I really did not like the book. If I could change one part in the tale, It would be the word choice.
I would not recommend this book because I establish this book to be very dull and nauseating. I felt like I was going to throw up at times. You would have to really like to read Autobiographies to read this book. I don’t reflect people under the 7th grade should read this book.
As you can see, the book Kaffir boy is not a very excellent book unless you like Autobiographies. This book is a really terrible book and should not even be taken off of the shelves. This book is the kind of book that will place people to sleep.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I was forced to read this book in school, and each night i didn’t look forwards to reading this book. I would of gave it no stars if that was an option. Not only were some scenes very obscene, it was really terrible. Don’t read this book!
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I was rescently assigned this book to read for my Humanities class. When I came upon the part with the young boys being used as sex toys I refused to read anymore. I reflect that this kind of material is inappropriate for school and should not required to read. I would have agreed this book no stars but this was not an option.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
According to the leader, white South Africans all lived in mansions, drove Rolls-Royces and Mercedes, had herds of black servants treated worse than slaves, white children which had never seen black school children before etc etc. Mrs. Smith was buying for her son bicycles, roller blades, ping-pong tables and additional stuff (all plural), which would requre storage space size of Walmart! Get real! I visited South Africa many times in 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s and I can say that “Kaffir Boy” is another propaganda tool aimed at ignorant Americans. Leader has his agenda, himself being the white-hater he is attempting to shape the public opinion in similar fashion.
He is suspended in vacuum between the dead end street of tribalism (whatever happened to “when we were kings” thought – in the book his fater and his tribe are morons), and the world built by the white people he is longing for and hating at the same time.
America of 1970’s is shown as the promised land of equal opportunities for the blacks. It’s 2003 now and the blacks still don’t reflect so and there are cries for more affirmative action and never ending government handouts.
Like this book if you are a heart bleeding liberal, but if you have any common sense, frequent inconsistiencies should be simple to spot. No doubt that the policy of racial segregation in South Africa was incorrect and cruel, but this book is not a right tale it claims to be. It’s a mix of truth, lies and imagined fiction. It’s meant to be the leader’s revenge, just like Jerzy Kosinski’s “Painted Bird”, which at the time of it’s publication was a believable and right tale, until dismissed years later as bunch of lies and garbage.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
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 described the circumstances in which Mathabane grew up. I establish it a pity, really, because the tale 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 vital as it is to educate about the horrors in this world, I firmly judge that if youngsters are agreed this much graphic exposure we are perpetrating the crime upon their souls. Why can’t writers find a way to prompt themselves in a privileged more noble fashion? Then their vital tales could be read by all. I can’t judge that not one review mentioned this problem!
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5