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Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa | Introduction

Mark Mathabane's Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa was the first widely published South African autobiography written in English by a black native. Macmillan's initial 1986 American publication stunned readers in much the same way Frederick Douglass's 1845 slave narrative had, forcing many to rethink American support of South African business and government. Earlier, Mathabane had begun to publish various essays and articles to educate Americans about the horrors of apartheid. When two of his brothers-in-law were shot and killed at point-blank range by a black police officer, he feared that the murders might have been a retaliation to one of his recently published Newsday articles. He agonized over the harm his political writing might bring to his family who still remained at home in Alexandra, but he knew that ignoring racial intimidation and violence would not make them go away. In his preface, Mathabane explains that Kaffir Boy was his attempt to make the world understand that apartheid had to be abolished because it could not be reformed.

Kaffir is a derogatory name whites use for blacks in South Africa. "The word Kaffir is of Arabic origin. It means 'infidel.' In South Africa it is used disparagingly by most whites to refer to blacks. It is the equivalent of the term nigger. I was called a 'Kaffir' many times," says Mathabane in an explanatory note that precedes the autobiography.

A chance reading of the book by Oprah Winfrey moved her to buy the film rights and arrange a family reunion with Mathabane and his family as guests on her show. Afterwards, his popularity and literary success skyrocketed. Kaffir Boy quickly became a national bestseller, translated into seven languages. Guest appearances on numerous television shows and riveting university lectures soon made Mathabane a sought-after speaker who continued to use words to prick the consciences of his listeners. By the year 2000, he had published four more works of nonfiction. Like Kaffir Boy, they too would address mankind's pressing need to abolish—once and for all—racial injustice, child abuse, spouse abuse, alcoholism, illiteracy, poverty, and disease.

Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid... Summary

The Road to Alexandra
Part 1 of Kaffir Boy begins in the predawn of a bitterly cold winter day in 1965 with the five-year-old Johannes Mathabane lying awake, terrified by nightmares. After his father leaves for work and his mother for the community outhouse, he finally falls asleep. Within moments, his nightmare becomes reality when Peri-Urban, the Alexandra Police Squad, makes one of its unannounced raids. His mother slips back into the house, awakens Johannes, and engages him in a quiet but frantic search for her passbook (apartheid regulations require that every black person in South Africa carry a document containing his or her photograph, name, address, tribal origin, work and marital status). Once it is found, she again slips out of the house—this time in search of a hiding place. Johannes is left alone with full responsibility for his three-year-old sister and one-year-old brother. The following night Peri-Urban returns, this time raiding the Mathabane home. His mother hides in a small, locked wardrobe, but Johannes is forced to witness his father's emotional emasculation as he is taunted and dragged half-naked out of the house. Along with dozens of others, he is handcuffed, taken away in a convoy of trucks, and forced to spend two months doing hard labor on a white man's potato farm for his past crimes—all because he could not afford to pay his poll tax or his tribal tax, nor did he have the money to bribe the police officer. In 1966, Johannes's father is once again arrested—this time for unemployment—and imprisoned for almost a year.

During his father's absence, Johannes's mother struggles to keep her family fed but can only afford one meager meal a day. When the landlord threatens to evict her, she appeals to her mother for money to pay the rent. After the money runs out, she secures a weekend job doing housecleaning and laundry. At six each morning, she takes her three children to area garbage dumps. There she and the children forage for food and other items they cannot afford: clothes, knives, furniture, and kitchen utensils. Still, gnawing hunger remains Johannes's constant companion, leading him into more and more dangerous situations. He begins stealing liquor bottles and reselling them to the owners, using the money for food and tickets to the movies. When he realizes that his mother is pregnant with her fourth child, he tells her that she should not have had him, that he is "not happy in this world." "It will get better," she tells him, but from his viewpoint it doesn't. Soon, he is hanging out with other six- and seven-year-olds, many of whom are homeless. He innocently accepts an invitation from a... » Complete Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's... Summary