Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane

Mark Mathabane's, Kaffir Boy , takes readers back to the 1940's in Alexandra, South Africa where apartheid laws took over the majority of the people's lives. Segregation and racial discrimination hang above the locals' heads. In Alexandra, guns and truncheons enforce rule and order. Mark vividly talks about his horrific childhood and some events that the human eyes are probably not suppose to witness. At a young age he has already known the full meaning of hunger, fear, violence, and hatred, especially towards the heartless whites. When he turns six years old, his mother forces him to go to school and he quickly enjoys learning how to read and write. Mark sees the beauty in learning, but isn't able to escape the face that he is still a kaffir (a derogatory word used to belittle the status of the natives in South Africa). His relationship with his father is not even close to getting better because he thinks Mark should be following tribal rules. As he gets older he realizes that not all whites are the same but forces himself not to fully trust the people that treated him and his people like property. With a hardened heart, Mark is determined to fight for a better life and future for himself and his family.

 Kaffir Boy is truly a powerful and emotional novel. Mark Mathabane did an amazing job with details and I think he did this because he wanted others to really understand what he had to go through while growing up in a society where people were not treated as people anymore. Although, he often repeated how terrible life was under apartheid throughout the novel and it would get a bit boring reading it over and over again. It is an easy read novel and I would recommend it to all high school teens, because every now and then we forget that there are other people in the world that are not as fortunate.

- Rocen S., grade 11