Becky A. Johnson

On the western edge of the South-West Townships of Johannesburg, also known as Soweto, lies the community of Braamfisherville. I once visited this community, accompanied by colleagues from the HIV organization I volunteered with at the time, to invite a group of orphans to a Christmas party. Comprised mostly of South African goveirnment-built RDP homes, there’s nothing fancy about this township. Rather, I was struck by the sheer poverty of the orphan family we visited, and how their lives were far from aligning with the vision of the community’s namesake.

Bram Fischer is somewhat of a folk hero to many South Africans, but to nowhere near the degree of Che Guevara, whose image in South Africa is likely more commonly enshrined than Jesus’. A former leader of the South African Communist Party, banned by the apartheid regime, Bram Fischer is mostly remembered for leading the legal defense during the famed Rivonia Trial in 1963 – 1964 — the event that sent Nelson Mandela and other members of the African National Congress to political prison on Robben Island for nearly 30 years. Fischer himself was arrested in 1965 for being a Communist, imprisoned in Pretoria, and died while under house arrest in 1974.

Nadine Gordimer’s 1979 novel Burger’s Daughter is a coded tribute to the legacy of Bram Fischer. Originally banned in South Africa by the apartheid government, it was first published in the United Kingdom. Now it is considered a work of historical fiction from this Nobel Prize-winning author.

The central character of this book is Rosa Burger, daughter of the fictionalized, Communist, anti-apartheid activist Lionel Burger, who has recently died in prison. As a woman in her mid-20s, Rosa struggles with what it means to be the daughter of someone who has been labelled a “terrorist” by his own government for acts he committed out of his own conscience.

Throughout the course of the novel, Rosa works as a physiotherapist, enters into several love affairs and secretly travels to France to visit her father’s first wife. While trying to lead a semi-normal life, this becomes impossible for her simply because of who her family was and what they stood for.

I wanted to love this book, but partially for sentimental reasons. There was mention of familiar places I’ve visited in South Africa — Orlando, Sophiatown, Baragwanath Hospital. There was mention of familiar events — the Sharpeville Massacre and the June 16th Soweto Student Uprising — that resonated with me, not because I was there, but because I know people who were and I have heard there stories. Although this is a work of fiction, there’s frequent mention of real-life people such as Nelson Mandela, John Vorster, Miriam Makeba and even Bram Fischer himself.

But for all its possibilities, I only found the book slightly above average. It was not for the content, but rather for structural reasons. There’s frequent shifting between first-person narrative (largely Rosa’s stream of consciousness) and an unknown narrator. When there’s dialogue, it’s noted through dashes rather than quotes, which really bothered me. I oftentimes had difficulty following the narration, and frequently my mind began to wander while reading.

If you’re looking for a work of historical fiction on South African apartheid, I’d recommend Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country over this one. And my favorite recent book on the repercussions of apartheid is Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull — a factual, journalistic account of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself — the latest book I’ve read for my 100 books challenge — is a fairly quick read and an important book from a historical perspective.

Published in 1845, the Narrative was the first of three Douglass autobiographies. The other two are My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881).

Interestingly, when Douglass first wrote and published his Narrative, he was still a fugitive slave, although he was living in the free state of Massachusetts at the time. In telling his story, Douglass explicitly names several plantation overseers and describes in great detail excessive physical abuse they exacted on their slaves — a few even going as far as murder. While reading, I kept trying to fathom the great risk Douglass took in coming public and sharing these stories, and wondering what would have happened if he had been captured by his master at that time.

The Narrative became an instant best-seller upon publication, especially amongst abolitionists who also used it as a propoganda piece. Upon publication, Douglass went on a ‘world tour’ to parts of the Caribbean islands, Ireland and England — likely in part to evade capture. Once in England, a group of abolitionists purchased his freedom for $711.

The Bedford series edition that I read — linked above with cover image also shown — contains an introduction and extensive footnoted commentary by David Blight, several book reviews that came out shortly after publication (including one by noted transcendalist Margaret Fuller), and a transcript of Douglass’ fiery 1952 speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

There’s also a chronology of Douglass’ life, which made me want to read his latter two autobiographies as well, although Narrative is his most famous. I admit that prior to reading this book I knew very little about Douglass’ life, and I found it interesting to learn that he served in appointed positions in three different U.S. presidential administrations and that his second wife was a well-to-do white woman, which caused much controversy at the time.

The Narrative itself is short at around 85 pages, including an Appendix where he posits the hypocrisy of American Christianity, while he himself was quite a religious man and wrote “I love the pure, peaceable and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land” (page 120). In some respects, it reminded me of Gandhi’s message 100 years later.