SOUTH AFRICAN TRAGEDY: The Life and Times of Jan Hofmeyr

by Alan Paton ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

There is no darker part of Africa than Paton's beloved country where the black rot of racism holds sway in the small, hard hearts and provincial, twisted, fascistic minds of the Afrikaners, the architects of apartheid. Hofmeyr, an Oxford educated Afrikaner, whose life was almost as tragic as his early death, was a remarkable man and influence. Sanity, Christian love, humility, a sense of the limited grace some humans acquire in their brief passage across the fact of the rugged land in.which they reside, are qualities as sparse in South Africa as gold and in diamonds ., are plentiful. Hofmeyr had these virtues, and he was also torn between the gently Christian existence of his boyhood and the brutal necessities of national politics. He entered politics in 1924 as a junior to Smuts; he died in 1948 when he was still much needed; and during that time he became the spokesman for equality and the common man. How this was achieved through his quiet craftsmanship, under-statement and great understanding, becomes in Paton's hands a parable of his times and our own. His defeat, when his party was voted out of power as a consequence of his own racial views, was the downfall of reason for au entire nation... It is a stirring story and one of great contemporary importance.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION