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Tsotsi (Paperback)

by Athol Fugard (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; New edition edition (2 Mar 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1841955663
  • ISBN-13: 978-1841955667
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 163,423 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"Tsotsi is a real find, by one of the most affecting and moving writers of our time" FINANCIAL TIMES "One of the best novels in contemporary South African fiction... [Tsotsi] illustrates the cardinal Fugard principle - that no matter how brutal the system which has destroyed families, broken bodies and reduced homes to rubble, it cannot turn out every light." TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT "In lean yet lyrical prose... [Athol Fugard] uncannily insinuates himself into the skins of the oppressed majority and articulates its rage and misery and hope." NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW"


Product Description

This work is reissued to coincide with a major feature film adaptation. The film adaptation of "Tsotsi" is the official selection of South Africa for Best Foreign Film (Academy Awards 2005) and was awarded Best British Film and the Audience Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2005. This is a deeply affecting novel by one of South Africa's greatest contemporary writers. Set amidst the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto, where survival is the primary objective, "Tsotsi" traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader. Tsotsi has repressed his past and forgotten his true name; he exists only to stage and execute vicious crimes. After beating one of his own gang almost to death in an argument, Tsotsi attempts to rape a woman in a grove of bluegum trees. She manages to escape but not before thrusting a parcel into his hands. It contains a baby with 'a face that was small and black and older than anything he had ever seen in his life', a child that will mark the first stage of his long, reluctant path to redemption. Confronted with memories of his own painful childhood, this angry young man begins to rediscover his own humanity, dignity and capacity to love.
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Pas, Kaffir!, 13 May 2006
By Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
In a razzia by the South-African police looking for illegal immigrants, the main character of this book, a 10 year old, looses 'the big, gentle, warm, protective mother behind whom he had hidden and escaped from the whole world of a child's fear.'
From now on, he stays defenseless in a strange labyrinth of laws, 'loneliness, being the only person in the world ... He learnt the lesson of hunger ... He learnt to watch for the weakness of sympathy or compassion for others weaker than yourself, like discovering how never to feel the pain you inflicted. He had no use for memories ... There was only the present, that continuous moment carrying him forward without question of regret.'
He becomes a tsotsi, a wild, brutally killing animal, always looking around for easy targets (the painted and the cripple): 'There was no conflict. It wasn't a question of should I, or shouldn't I. He was resigned to the inevitable, watching it unfold as doctors would the last stages of a disease in a patient who is beyond help.'

But one day, his wild mind is shaken when he meets a woman with a child. He is confronted with the moral problem of 'decency' as one of his gang members said.

Athol Fugard draws a profoundly moving and dramatic picture of a child gang in a dark and life threatening city. The treatment of the variations on the theme of absence - mother, father, friends, moral conscience, life - is not less than masterful.

This book is a real masterpiece.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Explaining the Township, 18 May 2009
By Sofia (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews
Fugard's novel covers just over three days in the life of "Tsotsi", a township gang-leader in Apartheid-era South Africa, commencing with the evening a baby is thrust upon him. What follows is both a portrait of the precarious and dangerous nature of township life and a meditation on how hopes are dashed and lives irreparably damaged.

This is a relatively short novel, written in easy story segments. Fugard writes with both sympathy and quiet outrage for the fates of his characters. No one is dismissed or judged no matter how repulsive their fate or lifestyle. What makes this a compelling read is the attempt to see beyond appearances, to explain fates, to understand choices. Ultimately though, this is also what keeps this a four-star not a five-star novel. Tsotsi is a powerful character, lost in his dark, violent world. The baby triggers memories of a destroyed childhood, the baby offers redemption and yet there is something a little too obvious with this, something that jars: The baby is there in spirit rather than substance. The baby is the least real of all the characters (even the other baby) with no back-story or resolution and in the context of this novel, this inconsistency may irk you too. That said, this remains a worthwhile read.
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