Antjie Krog

Rounding up. A mix of a journalistic and personal story-telling about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, the writing in this debut can be dense and sometimes the narrative is disjointed (in fairness, I felt the same about another book on the same topic - maybe these events defy sense-making.) Nevertheless, this is an important accounting of the TRC, a reflection on its limits, and the toll it took on the participants, commissioners and journalists. An essential read if you are interested in past/present South Africa.… (mais)

2.5 stars

Shortly after Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Committee was formed to listen to victims and perpetrators of apartheid. If perpetrators applied for and came clean, they would be given amnesty.

I didn't like the writing style. The author is putting a lot of herself into it, and I'm not interested in her. The stories are very short and it wasn't enough to keep me interested most of the time. There is also a lot more about the Truth and Reconciliation Committee itself and how the hearings are proceeding, how it works, etc – more than I'm interested in. I ended up reading it quite quickly because I skimmed so much of it, because it wasn't holding my interest. Some stories did hold my interest, but not nearly as many as I'd hoped. I did find it interesting that Nelson Mandela's ex-wife had a group of bodyguards (young boys) who terrorized and tortured people. Overall, though it's a topic that should be more interesting (and apparently it is to other people, just not to me, based on other reviews).… (mais)

Country of My Skull is an astonishing book. Krog's attempt to embrace, explicate, and bear witness to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is complicated, creative, flawed, distressing, inspiring. A supremely human book that doesn't resile from its truths, emotional and otherwise.

Krog is a radio journalist assigned to cover the 'make-or-break' Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the larval, apartheid-free South African state. But she is also a poet, an Afrikaner, a left-wing journalist, a woman, and more. As a microcosm of South African society passes through the commission, which lens will she view them with? How can one do justice to these people? - a question no less pressing for Krog than the Commission itself.

The answer to both questions varies a lot. Some parts of Country of My Skull are simply transcripts of the testimonies, followed by Krog's analysis or reaction. Others are hypothetical conversations with different facets of the South Africans she engages with about the Commission. Others still are internal monologues or prose poems. The tone overall is troubled, vulnerable, and also afraid of what the failure of the Commission might mean.

I really admired Krog's willingness to think about her own emotions, reactions and ultimately culpability as a white South African. This is not a book that shies away from much, and I feel like it really captures the confusion, incomprehension, and in some ways insanity, that apartheid engendered and has gifted the country with.

It doesn't have any easy answers - the answers it provides are woefully inadequate for everyone. There's no real arc or narrative, and it's hard to say whether the book ends on a high note or not - there's an inescapable sense of fragility throughout that undermines any idea of closure. Country of My Skull is a big book, and it's demanding, emotionally and mentally.

But this is perhaps the best way - the only way? - to write about the enormity of Apartheid, what it wrought and what that means in the "new" South Africa. Highly recommended.… (mais)