Frederic Hunter

The heart of Africa is a different world, and the heart of an African American can quickly lose its way. But Kwame, hoping one last assignment will make him ready for real American life (with a real American wife awaiting his proposal), is determined to find his soul without losing his heart. He finds jungle, dust, spike-headed girls selling their bodies for a pittance, a stranger who knows too much and too little, and a missing employer who hasn’t even unpacked the books and movies show more yet.

Kwame’s job is to open a library and teach the world, specifically this small part of the world, about America. Kwame’s dream is to find his identity and get safely married. And Kwame’s reality is by turn scary and zany, filled with temptation and compassion, and suddenly broken by war.

Putting the broken pieces back together, revealing himself to himself and others, and forging a path to the future, Kwame’s story might be set in the Uttermost Parts of the Earth, but it carries an immediate relevance to the Western world in the present day, where too often we think we know what we don’t, we choose the wrong “best” for others and ourselves, and we fail to listen and see. Humanity can be dark and cruel, where African or American, and perhaps the gift is to see both sides of ourselves.

The Uttermost Parts of the Earth is sensual, ridiculous, riotously funny, frightening, lyrical, awesomely beautiful and ugly, fascinating, and not an easy read. But it’s highly recommended.

Disclosure: I was given a preview edition by the publisher and I offer my honest review. show less

In 1961, a white man showers and can’t wash away the stain of his past. A white girl wonders if she’s really in love with the man she’s meant to marry. A black leader is rumored to be either alive or dead. And South Africa seethes.

Author Frederic Hunter brings that seething to life in the travels of two people who should never meet; one young and innocent, the other older and guilt-ridden, and both of them guilty in a world that’s bound to a seriously flawed status quo. The show more author’s depiction of their road trip brings towns and people, scenery and countries to life. But this novel’s as much about internal roads as national boundaries. Rescuing themselves is as important as rescuing each other or anyone else. And a tale of recent darkness brings light to the present too, as Gat and Petra seek emotional freedom in a twisted, twisting world.

Well-pitched third person narration adds a haunting sense of the characters’ isolation to this novel, even as well-toned dialog brings each scene to life. Institutionalized murder and brutality become ironically less distant, more inevitable perhaps, while reader and characters try to distance themselves. Meanwhile hope grows, together with love, despite the haunting revelations waiting at the side. Maybe the sins of the past don’t have to outweigh the present or the future, but their consequences have a habit of catching up.

Today, the reader knows apartheid will fall. But here it’s the backdrop of a tale of real people overcoming fear with love, in a place where one day hope will be writ large. Boundaries can bend, break and fall, but only when we try to cross them.

Constantly surprising, often terrifying, hauntingly and oddly romantic, Love In A Time Of Apartheid is a hard book to put down and an impossible one to forget.

I was given a preview edition and I offer my honest review. show less