“Gish’s fine book tells Biehl’s story warmly and well and also provides an uplifting account of how her parents dealt with her loss and have since engaged in an elaborate reconciliation with South Africa and their daughter’s assailants.…Summing up: Essential.”
R. I. Rotberg, CHOICE
“If ever there was a book for our time, this is it. Amy Biehl’s story is painful and inspirational, and Steven D. Gish has captured both in his extraordinary recounting of Biehl's journey. While some may struggle to fathom why this young white scholar chose to walk alongside South Africans on their often-dangerous path to democracy, Gish’s masterful book provides answers in her own words and those of others who understood her passion and her commitment. Amy Biehl’s Last Home is a book that can and should inspire us all.”
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, author and longtime African affairs journalist
“I knew both the author and the subject of this book from a Stanford class in African politics. As a black South African, I had considerable anti-white grievance, but Steve and Amy in their life choices laid bare the dangers of my single story, even more so when Amy died so tragically in my hometown. As race relations seem to be unraveling on both sides of the Atlantic, this impressive work of scholarship about the entangled histories of South Africa and the United States comes at an opportune time.”
Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor, University of Stellenbosch
“Readers interested in reconciliation processes and justice movements will find this study illuminating and moving.”
Publishers Weekly
In 1993, white American Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl was killed in a racially motivated attack near Cape Town, after spending months working to promote democracy and women’s rights in South Africa. The ironic circumstances of her death generated enormous international publicity and yielded one of South Africa’s most heralded stories of postapartheid reconciliation. Amy’s parents not only established a humanitarian foundation to serve the black township where she was killed, but supported amnesty for her killers and hired two of the young men to work for the Amy Biehl Foundation. The Biehls were hailed as heroes by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and many others in South Africa and the United States—but their path toward healing was neither quick nor easy.
Granted unrestricted access to the Biehl family’s papers, Steven Gish brings Amy and the Foundation to life in ways that have eluded previous authors. He is the first to place Biehl’s story in its full historical context, while also presenting a gripping portrait of this remarkable young woman and the aftermath of her death across two continents.
Steven D. Gish is a professor of history at Auburn University at Montgomery. His previous books include Alfred B. Xuma: African, American, South African and Desmond Tutu: A Biography. He has traveled widely in South Africa since the 1980s and has interviewed key figures in the antiapartheid movement, including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Desmond Tutu, Trevor Huddleston, and Beyers Naudé. More info →
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Biography, Women · African History · South Africa · African Studies
Hardcover
978-0-8214-2321-9
Retail price: $28.95,
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Release date: June 2018
61 illus.
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392 pages
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Electronic
978-0-8214-4634-8
Release date: June 2018
61 illus.
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392 pages
Rights: World
“Amy Biehl’s Last Home will, for all its accessibility to a general readership, be of value to scholars of the South African transition, of the impact of South African events on the United States, and of what Gish calls ‘forgiveness studies.’”
Christopher Saunders, University of Cape Town
“Gish brings new insights to the story of Amy Biehl, her death, and the family's coming to peace with the tragedy … His knowledge as an historian of modern South Africa gives nuance and depth to this inspiring story of commitment, sacrifice, and forgiveness.”
John Hennessy, President, Stanford University, 2000–2016
“Steven Gish has written a remarkable account of Amy Biehl’s life, death, and what happened subsequently as her killers were brought to trial and her parents established a foundation in her name devoted to reconciliation and forgiveness. Deftly probing the controversies that erupted in South Africa after her death and the work of the foundation, Gish sensitively plumbs the pathos that is at the heart of the story. There were passages where I was brought to tears.”
Robert R. Edgar, coauthor of African Apocalypse: The Story of Nontetha Nkwenkwe, a Twentieth-Century South African Prophet
A Burning Hunger
One Family’s Struggle Against Apartheid
By Lynda Schuster
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.
History · African Studies · African History · African Child · Childhood · Apartheid · South Africa
Steve Biko inspired a generation of black South Africans to claim their true identity and refuse to be a part of their own oppression. Through his example, he demonstrated fearlessness and self-esteem, and he led a black student movement countrywide that challenged and thwarted the culture of fear perpetuated by the apartheid regime. He paid the highest price with his life. The brutal circumstances of his death shocked the world and helped isolate his oppressors.
Biography, Activists · African History · 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
