Since 1990 South Africa began to come out of apartheid. Nelson Mandela was released from prison and black political parties had equality in parliament. All this effective social segregation was carried out with the typical reluctance of privileged whites and with the consequent conflicts.
It must be recognized that the laudable political will of President De Klerk was also marked by necessity. The contrast between buoyant demographics and a lack of job qualifications in very different economic settings weighed on the whole of South Africa. The need then became a virtue and little by little the necessary scenario of equality was found lofty with the arrival of Nelson Mandela to the presidency in 1994.
But those long years of apartheid, extended until our most recent yesterday like a strange stain in an already fully integrated world without understanding of races, religions or any other aspect, left little great stories that are worth being told and remembered. Who else who least could have written a novel of his life, especially among the disadvantaged black majority.
The point is that Bianca Marais has contributed her brilliant grain of sand to build a necessary intrahistory from fiction to the universality of what happened.
In this novel we meet Robin Conrad, a favored white girl, and Beauty Mbali, of the Xhosa ethnic group, as Mandela. We are in full apartheid (1976) while the rest of the world has already largely overcome institutionalized racism (racism on an individual basis there will always be, unfortunately).
The two sides of the mirror of the same reality begin to turn in the Soweto revolt. There Robin Conrad loses his parents, facing the void from the fullness in which he lived. Beauty is doing no better, her daughter disappears into the tumultuous conflict.
The tragedy is like that, it equals everything. It doesn't matter where you come from, if you are rich or poor. When the tragic shakes the two women, and deep down they discover that all part of the inequality, they become more aware that the loss is the result of the unreason in which they live. An emotional story, one of those that end up pointing to the human condition invaded by ideology, as the only thing capable of making a worse world.
You can now buy the novel If you don't know the lyrics, hum, the new book by Bianca Marais, here. With a small discount for accesses from this blog, which is always appreciated: