“A major contribution to the history of the struggle era, giving a human face to a family that was idolized by black South Africans and demonized in white South Africa.”
Business Day
“A compelling story of a South African family that became deeply involved in this deadly, seemingly unending battle between black Africans and whites…. the accounts impressively combine to form one intensely felt narrative of life in apartheid South Africa.”
The Historian
“A Burning Hunger is a vital reminder of one of the most intense political struggles in living memory. It's fascinating, triumphant and ultimately very sad.”
Time Out
“Of all the valuable books I have read, Schuster’s was the first to draw me so close that I could smell the burning tyres that barricaded Soweto streets that week; I could smell the thick smoke of burning shops and police vehicles—all coupled with a family's burning hunger for survival.”
Mercury
If the Mandelas were the generals in the fight for black liberation, the Mashininis were the foot soldiers. Theirs is a story of exile, imprisonment, torture, and loss, but also of dignity, courage, and strength in the face of appalling adversity. Originally published in Great Britain to critical acclaim, A Burning Hunger: One Family’s Struggle Against Apartheid tells a deeply moving human story and is one of the seminal books about the struggle against apartheid.
This family, Joseph and Nomkhitha Mashinini and their thirteen children, became immersed in almost every facet of the liberation struggle—from guerrilla warfare to urban insurrection. Although Joseph and Nomkhitha were peaceful citizens who had never been involved in politics, five of their sons became leaders in the antiapartheid movement. When the students of Soweto rose up in 1976 to protest a new rule making Afrikaans the language of instruction, they were led by charismatic young Tsietsi Mashinini. Scores of students were shot down and hundreds were injured. Tsietsi’s actions on that day set in motion a chain of events that would forever change South Africa, define his family, and transform their lives.
A Burning Hunger shows the human catastrophe that plagued generations of black Africans in the powerful story of one religious and law-abiding Soweto family. Basing her narrative on extensive research and interviews, Lynda Schuster richly portrays this remarkable family and in so doing reveals black South Africa during a time of momentous change.
Lynda Schuster worked as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor in Africa, Central and South America, and the Middle East. Her writing has appeared in Granta, Utne, and the Atlantic Monthly. She now lives in Gainesville, Florida. More info →
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“This is modern history written for a broad readership, and not necessarily an African one.”
Sunday Independent
“A Burning Hunger is the history of a South African family that suffered, resisted and finally triumphed over apartheid: a book that is as fascinating as the best novels.”
Mario Vargas Llosa
“This is an earnest and passionate historical account, crafted from meticulous research and study. It is a narrative made for captivating reading and painful reminder of the brutality of the apartheid system. The book is a welcome addition to a much needed but historically neglected genre of struggle biography.”
Reverend Frank Chikane
“It is strange that no South African writer has thought of doing what Lynda Schuster, an American journalist, has done so well in this book—follow through the history of a black family in the context of the anti-apartheid struggle.”
The Sunday Times
“The great strength of the book is its narrative line…. Shuster did almost one hundred interviews and one feels as if one is seeing exile through the eyes of Tsietsi, Rocks, and Dee, and the emerging South Africa via Mpho and Tshepiso…. In this, she has given us a remarkable sense—national, international, and personal—of late apartheid era South Africa and its exiles.”
International Journal of African Historical Studies
Apartheid’s Genesis
Edited by Philip Bonner, Peter Delius, and Deborah Posel
Apartheid is synonymous in most people’s minds with a virulent form of racial ideology and social engineering. Yet ideologies of racial domination and segregation long preceded apartheid, and cannot by themselves explain the shift in racial domination that apartheid involved.Focusing on the period 1935–1962, this collection explores the dynamics which molded apartheid.
African Studies · Africa · Southern Africa · South Africa · Nationalism · Race and Ethnicity · Apartheid · African History · History · History | Modern | 20th Century
Black Lawyers, White Courts
The Soul of South African Law
By Kenneth S. Broun
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Foreword by Julius L. Chambers
In the struggle against apartheid, one often overlooked group of crusaders was the coterie of black lawyers who overcame the Byzantine system that the government established oftentimes explicitly to block the paths of its black citizens from achieving justice.Now, in their own voices, we have the narratives of many of those lawyers as recounted in a series of oral interviews. Black Lawyers, White Courts is their story and the anti-apartheid story that has before now gone untold.Profess
Legal and Constitutional History · African History · Political Science · South Africa · African Studies · Apartheid
Liquor and Labor in Southern Africa
Edited by Jonathan Crush and Charles Ambler
In June 1976 political demonstrations in the black township of Soweto exploded into an insurrection that would continue sporadically and spread to urban areas across South Africa. In their assault on apartheid the youths who spearheaded the rebellion attacked and often destroyed the state institutions that they linked to their oppression: police stations, government offices, schools, and state-owned liquor outlets.
African History · Human Geography · Sociology · African Studies · South Africa
The Soweto Uprising
By Noor Nieftagodien
The Soweto uprising was a true turning point in South Africa’s history. Even to contemporaries, it seemed to mark the beginning of the end of apartheid. This compelling book examines both the underlying causes and the immediate factors that led to this watershed event. It looks at the crucial roles of Black Consciousness ideology and nascent school-based organizations in shaping the character and form of the revolt.
African History · African Studies · History · Politics · South Africa · Southern Africa · Africa
