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The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning cover

The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning

Eve Fairbanks

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The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning

South Africans face a reckoning: mourn a miracle nation that never came into being, fight on to give it birth, or make something else out of 1994's ashes? In The Inheritors, Eve Fairbanks tells the stories of ordinary people facing this stupendous question. These are the kinds of lives rarely examined in such depth: political activist Dipuo, her born-free daughter Malaika, and Christo, one of the last Afrikaner men drafted to fight for the apartheid regime. All three have to remake their own lives while facing the questions: what do I owe to my forebears, and what does history owe to me? They tell of the unresolved rage, generational guilt, and enduring hope that many South Africans struggle to speak aloud to themselves in private, let alone share. Observing subtle truths about power and inheritance, Fairbanks explores questions that preoccupy so many South Africans today: how can one let go of one's past? How should historical debts be paid? And how can a person live an honourable life in a society that – for better or worse – they no longer recognise?

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Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Year
2023
ISBN-13
9781776192731
Genre
History
Topics
Post-apartheid South AfricaRacial reckoning and reconciliationGenerational identity and inheritance

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