In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Apartheid: Background information when reading A Beautiful Place to Die

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

A Beautiful Place to Die

A Novel

by Malla Nunn
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • First Published:
  • Jan 6, 2009, 384 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2009, 384 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Apartheid

This article relates to A Beautiful Place to Die

Print Review

Apartheid (meaning separateness in Afrikaans*) was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the National Party government of South Africa between 1948 and 1990.

The new system was a way for the white Afrikaner National Party to ensure their control over both South Africa's economy and social structure. The key was white dominance of blacks and colored (mixed descent) people. Apartheid was born as a political tactic but grew to involve violence and extreme strife.

The apartheid laws were officially enacted in 1948, four years before the events told in A Beautiful Place to Die. Racial discrimination became not simply a mechanism engrained in local customs, but part and parcel of the government. That is, apartheid race laws tainted every aspect of people's lives, holding sway over who one could marry, work for, live with, or even be friends with. The division by the government's Department of Home Affairs into white, black and colored (or mixed blood) was based largely on physical appearance and demeanor, with the inevitable complications of one being able to finagle one's way out of one category into another (or sometimes being forced by a committee to accept a racial identity of their choosing)- a quite relevant aspect of Nunn's book. Penalties for not complying with the race laws were severe. A Beautiful Place to Die clearly portrays the degree of danger and risk involved in stepping outside the law.

For a short history of South Africa from 1652 to 1994 see the review of Unconfessed.

*Afrikaans, derived from 17th century Dutch, is one of the eleven official languages of modern-day South Africa, which also recognizes 8 unofficial languages. Today, it is mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia with an estimated 6.5 million speaking it as their first language and a further 7 million speaking it as a second language.

Filed under People, Eras & Events

Article by Allison Stadd

This "beyond the book article" relates to A Beautiful Place to Die. It originally ran in January 2009 and has been updated for the October 2009 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.