- Hardcover: 560 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown & Company; First edition (22 Sep 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0316909831
- ISBN-13: 978-0316909839
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 15 x 5.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,451,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Set in South Africa, this story features three teenage friends, Liza Frank, Pieter de Vries and Dan Tweneni, who, as they reach adulthood, are torn apart by apartheid. Their lives become a microcosm of the clashing cultures in South Africa - violent, bloody, and treacherous.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I had already read "Harvesting the past" which was set in the post apartheid era. Afterwards, I read "The sentinel" and was shocked by the reality in South Africa during the apartheid. The ending is very surprising and I must admit, very realistic, so that's why I gave five stars to this book. If you are a fan of Swindells, read this book but prepare yourself to a very tragic story.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The setting is South Africa spanning the 1980s, during apartheid and its turbulent demise. This book started out dull, but I persevered for sensing it was necessary to show the lives of its characters before the tumult. Around page 60 (of a 560-page paperback) it became gripping and remained so till the end. At its heart are four main characters. Liza: found abandoned as a four-year-old and fostered by an Afrikaner woman till the age of thirteen, whereupon she is reclassified as 'coloured' and forbidden to live in a white community. Torn from all she believes herself to be, homeless, Liza bridles against her new identity and the self-loathing that accompanies it, while struggling to survive on the streets of Johannesburg.
Dan: an ambitious young black South African with a brilliant academic mind, forced to move to the city to pursue a means to a higher education, because the law denies blacks an education beyond the age of 16 where he grew up. Pieter: a young Afrikaner with a deep love of the land who dreams of being a farmer, till the loss of the two people dearest to him leaves him lost and takes him down what proves a murky path.
Lastly is Tony who marks all their lives in ways seen and unseen, with shocking consequences.
I recall seeing footage of the violence on the streets of South Africa during apartheid and how such open and unashamed racial hatred took my breath away. 'The Sentinel' brought back that recollection and made it an intimate experience through the lives of its main characters. Yet it's more than the personal journey of these four. It's as much about South Africa itself and how the system of apartheid proved fundamentally injurious to all its people. The psyche of black and white South Africans born into apartheid never stood a chance against the outrage of it. Hard to imagine anyone reading this book not being profoundly affected.
Dan: an ambitious young black South African with a brilliant academic mind, forced to move to the city to pursue a means to a higher education, because the law denies blacks an education beyond the age of 16 where he grew up. Pieter: a young Afrikaner with a deep love of the land who dreams of being a farmer, till the loss of the two people dearest to him leaves him lost and takes him down what proves a murky path.
Lastly is Tony who marks all their lives in ways seen and unseen, with shocking consequences.
I recall seeing footage of the violence on the streets of South Africa during apartheid and how such open and unashamed racial hatred took my breath away. 'The Sentinel' brought back that recollection and made it an intimate experience through the lives of its main characters. Yet it's more than the personal journey of these four. It's as much about South Africa itself and how the system of apartheid proved fundamentally injurious to all its people. The psyche of black and white South Africans born into apartheid never stood a chance against the outrage of it. Hard to imagine anyone reading this book not being profoundly affected.
Format:Paperback
An excellent book. The story is taken from each angle and opinion making it the full picture.
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