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A Novel
by Malla Nunn
Book Reviewed by:This article relates to A Beautiful Place to Die
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
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.
Happy Land
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.
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