Reviews

The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning by Eve Fairbanks

tjwallace04's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

 "The Inheritors" is a fascinating look at the history and culture of South Africa, from the 1970s through the present, with a particular focus on the post-apartheid period. The narrative is founded on the stories told by three South Africans about their lives, so it has the feeling of an oral history, buttressed with brief interludes of historical information and rounded out with the observations of the author. Dipuo is an anti-apartheid activist who grew up in a township and was known as "Stalin" for her toughness. Her daughter Malaika inherits the fruits of her mother's labor, growing up in the post-apartheid era and going to formerly white schools, but struggling to find her way in the messy, fraught, still-racist post-apartheid spaces. Christo is an Afrikaner who grew up wanting to be a soldier and was one of the last youth drafted before apartheid ended, but his military experience was not what he expected and he doesn't know who he is when it is over.

The main thing I can say about this book is that my mind boggled about how complicated the cultural situation in South Africa is. And how hopeless it all felt. Just layers upon layers of rage, guilt, fear, envy, self-recrimination, and doubt. Fairbanks posits that the Afrikaner minority feels a lot of guilt and shame for the fact that they were not more severely "punished" for apartheid. Some black South Africans feel guilt and shame for the many issues that the country has experienced under ANC rule. And so it goes on, a vortex of negative feelings and an apparent inability to bridge gaps in understanding. I finished the book feeling depressed, both for South Africa and for racial reconciliation in the United States too. Racism is so insidious, and its evils are so far-reaching. It hurts everyone, and it feels irreparable.

Also, I felt vaguely uncomfortable throughout the book knowing that Fairbanks is a white American woman. On the one hand, her outside perspective was probably necessary, and she did live in South Africa for many years, so she had built knowledge and relationships. On the other hand, she draws a lot of conclusions and attributes a lot of feelings to her interview subjects that I felt uncertain about. She does not have a light hand in the narrative and expresses a lot of thoughts and opinions. It would be interesting to see if I could find a similar book written by a South African and compare. 

pamiverson's review

4.0

Somewhat depressing look at the last 40 years in South Africa -- how the establishment of a post-Apartheid society has failed, looking at the lives of two Soweto residents of different generations and an Afrikaner. The internalized oppression and blatant racism are so hard to eliminate!! Different value systems and beliefs, challenges of isolation and a failing economy.

etrain's review

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

jessicawoofter's review

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

taylakaye's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.75

memmaj's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative medium-paced

4.75

This book was an immensely emotional read for me. I am a white South African who lives in Australia and my mother was a white liberal Afrikaaner who was involved in the struggle and my dad a white English South African was conscripted into the border war, and I now work in racial and gender justice in Aus. So much like RSAs history my own family history is complex, challenging and confused. At first I did not think this book should have been written by an American, however now I have come to the conclusion I appreciated her POV. There were many points in this book that I had to stop to pause or cry in a mixture of anger, hope and sadness.  South Africa is a wonderful, rich and deeply traumatised country and Eve does a great job in demonstrating its complexity without demanding that it fit into a narrative of nationhood, that  it can’t and will not fulfil ( and not should it). I do wonder how it reads for white people not from RSA, however I do think there is plenty to derive from the book. Finally, as an Afrikaans person, who feels equal shame, horror, and pride in the identity, it was so wonderful to see that represented in a book, it’s never been reflected back to me in the way that this book and it’s musings on the identity within it. Final note, the book refers to “Australian Aborigines”, “Aborigines” is a deeply offensive term and the (generally) preferred term is Aboriginal and Torres STrait Islander People. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, War, and Racism

kaytee's review

challenging informative slow-paced

4.5

Really eye opening, and the thoughts provoked are definitely applicable in our divided North America.