Anthony Sampson
A remarkable memoir, which reads like a racy comic thriller but conveys all the more poignantly the suffering behind the laughter.
Doris Lessing
One of the livliest books about the pre-Mandela era - a very enjoyable read.
Cape Times
Breathtaking in its simlicity and style...a book that does not seek to glorify itself but to tell the truth.
Donald Woods
One of the strongest beginnings of any book I've read.
Doris Lessing
‘One of the liveliest books about the pre-Mandela era - a very enjoyable read.'
Book Description
Part murder-mystery, part elegy, this is the story of the team of liberty-seeking, jazz-loving, hard drinking black journalists that wrote for South Africa's renowned Drum magazine in the 1950s. Former Drum editor, Sylvester Stein, fulfils his promise to avenge their untimely deaths with this celebration of the magazine that took on apartheid.
Includes beautiful, evocative photos by former Drum photographers, Jürgen Schadeberg and Bob Gosani.
About the Author
Sylvester Stein is best known as author of the UK best seller Second Class Taxi, described by The Guardian as ‘the first and one of the best satirical novels about the daftness and the pain of apartheid’, and formerly banned in his native South Africa. His other books include: What the World Owes Me by Mary Bowes, Old Letch and 99 Ways to Reach 100.
Excerpted from Who Killed Mr Drum? by Sylvester Stein, Jurgen Shadeberg. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
'I couldn't help but be swamped with thoughts of Henry's person and his life... and how with his cheek - yes, cheek, that almost forbidden quality for a black man in this white society - he had made the magazine... I began a thirty-year search among all this bag of rumours for the identity of his murderer. I would track him down and wreak vengeance on him. It would be my life's work.'
