Brink, Andre

New York. 1980. Morrow. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 068803568x. 316 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Lydia Rosier. Signed by the Author. keywords: Literature South Africa Afrikaans. FROM THE PUBLISHER - Johannesburg schoolteacher Ben Du Toit is an ordinary, decent, harmless ‘little man,' unremarkable in every way - until his basic sense of justice is outraged by the death of a man he has known. Shortly after the Soweto riots of 1976, Gordon, a loyal friend, is held by the Security Police. His death, after a few weeks' detention, is officially determined to be a suicide. In the beginning the ruling appears to be a straightforward matter to Ben - an unfortunate official error that can be explained and put right without much trouble. There is one problem, however. Ben is white, his friend was black. And in his search for the truth he has to challenge the basic assumptions on which his racist society is founded. As the whole infernal machinery of the Security Police and even his own family turn against him, he probes ever deeper layers of experience and awareness, forced as he is to find new definitions for concepts he used to take for granted - love, loyalty, responsibility, God. Du Toit's world becomes a bleak one. But it is tempered by love - between men and women, fathers and sons, friends, whites and blacks - and on the horizon exists the possibility of a new and profound experience of compassion. inventory #1595 ISBN: 068803568x.