It's not clear where I found this book. There is a "4.50" penciled inside the front cover, so it could have been a used book store, or it could have been a Little Free Library or a coffee shop. Doesn't matter.
In any case, it languished on my shelf for a while, then I picked it up and read it. It was slow going at first. Published in 1972 as part of an African Writers series inaugurated by Chinua Achebe, this short South African novel tells the tale of a few ground level operatives in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
More than anything, it reminds me of Alan Furst and his faceless spies of the thirties as fascism knocked on every door in Europe. Though where the overriding motif of Furst is cold, of semi-random, furtive coupling by men and women of the continent-wide Resistance to an evil on the horizon, La Guma's world is one of heat, humidity, dirt, and smells. The protagonist never bathes and wears the same clothes throughout the novel, traveling around a South African city now on foot, now on crowded bus.
There are echoes of the great modernist urban novels of the early 20th century: Joyce, Bely, Dos Passos, Doblin. Pages of overheard dialog from street corners and buses with no speakers identified. But mostly quiet heroism and perseverance.
Wherever I found it, I'm glad I did. I was inspired by Gregory Michie, a UNC grad who teaches in Chicago and wrote a book about his experience who said in the UNC alumni mag that he had gone years reading only books by black writers. Not a bad idea, though I'm not sure I make it there.
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