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Tsotsi

3.63 of 5 stars 3.63 · rating details · 515 ratings · 74 reviews

Tsotsi is a real find, by one of the most affecting and moving writers of our time (Financial Times)-- and the novel is now being reissued to coincide with the release of a feature film, which is already being compared to 2004's runaway hit City of God.

One of the world's preeminent playwrights, who could be a primary candidate for either the Nobel Prize in Literature or...more

Paperback, 256 pages

Published January 27th 2006 by Grove Press (first published 1979)

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Aug 25, 2009 Pandasurya rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiksi-luar-terjemahan, punya, favorit

Tsotsi

Hari mulai petang ketika kau bertanya kepadaku: benarkah hanya yang paling kejam yang bisa sejahtera? Aku tahu kau sedang bicara tentang Tsotsi…

***
Pencerahan, kau tahu, bisa dimulai dari keadaan yang paling gelap. Begitulah proses hidup yang dialami Tsotsi, tokoh utama novel ini. Tapi maaf saja, pencerahan itu tidak datang dari sebuah buku, seorang ustad, pendeta, atau kitab suci sekali pun. Pencerahan itu hadir melalui sesosok bayi mungil.

Tsotsi sendiri adalah sebutan untuk gangster di k...more

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Feb 01, 2008 Lynecia rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone interested in apartheid, South Africa

THUG. Hoodlum. Lowlife. Murderer. Robber. “Tsotsi” is the Afrikaans word for young thugs who rule the township streets of South Africa. This is the “name” of Athol Fugard’s young protagonist. He is mysterious, shadowy, has no name; has no past, family, or friends, or at least no recollections of every belonging anywhere or to anyone. So he chooses to rename himself “Tsotsi” and he embodies all the qualities of the worst.
In apartheid-era South Africa, where Blacks are forced to live in poverty a...more THUG. Hoodlum. Lowlife. Murderer. Robber. “Tsotsi” is the Afrikaans word for young thugs who rule the township streets of South Africa. This is the “name” of Athol Fugard’s young protagonist. He is mysterious, shadowy, has no name; has no past, family, or friends, or at least no recollections of every belonging anywhere or to anyone. So he chooses to rename himself “Tsotsi” and he embodies all the qualities of the worst.
In apartheid-era South Africa, where Blacks are forced to live in poverty and under oppressive laws, young men morph into ruthless gangs, emulating the 1940s period “gangstas” of American film, even adopting their style of dress. These cold-hearted young men prey on their people by night; robbing and murdering innocents for the little money that they work hard to earn.
In Soweto, Tsotsi is the leader of his pack and the novel opens as he and his comrades plan the night’s “job.” The youngest and most ruthless of them all, he never says much— just observes his surroundings quickly and thoroughly; hawk-eyed and quick-tempered; he makes it a rule to never answer questions about himself. When one of his companions make the mistake of asking him his name, he beats him to a pulp and runs wildly out into the night and ends up on the other side of town; the White side that’s heavily patrolled by the South African Police specifically to keep “unwanted” people out.
Tsotsi encounters a young woman who shoves a package into his hand and runs away—this signifies the beginning of the transformation of Tsotsi’s heart. The package contains a baby, a baby whom he chooses to care for and slowly regains his ability to feel.
He starts to make sense of the fragments of memories that the float on the precipices of his psyche. He starts regain the memories of who he once was…His name, his past, his family, all begin to float back into his memory as the ice around his heart begins to melt.
Fugard’s symbolism coincides with the political backdrop of Soweto. As Tsotsi’s mental and emotional walls begin to crumble, so does the township of Soweto. The South African government is tearing down the township with its people in it; The White minority feels that the Black townships are edging too close to their homes and the government comes in with bull dozers to mow them down, forcing the people to move from the their homes or to perish under the wreckage.
More than a story of a reformed thug, “Tsotsi” delves into apartheid, and gives faces to the people who became victims of the system itself. Emotional and moving, questioning and psychological, and guaranteed to stir the soul yet it transcends its genre and becomes more than a political or historical novel; it becomes a story of humanity.
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Dec 17, 2012 Anastasiya Yeremenko rated it 2 of 5 stars

I personally did not enjoy this book. I was forced to read this for school, and the teacher said that the main character "Tsotsi" was going to change religiously at the end. In my perspective he had barely had changed. The ending seemed pointless. I feel like the smile was a symbol for something but I honestly could not identify what it meant.
I would recommend this book for people who like books with very good imagery. That's probably one of the reasons I didn't like the book, it almost seemed o...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Sophie Dusting rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Synopsis:

"Once lost, that battle was never fought again." (Pg.84)

In South Africa, a violent, fierce gang runs the streets of Sophiatown. The leader, Tsotsi, knows only an existence of killing and stealing till one night, when attempting to rape a woman, she forces a shoebox into his arms. The shoebox is home to a baby; a symbol of Tsotsi's misplaced youth, incapacity to love and lack of humanity. Unable to find the baby's mother and initially hesitant, Tsotsi takes the baby with him, a move...more

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Nov 16, 2010 Greenockian rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hugely disappointing based on the plaudits that come with it. We are led to believe this is a story about redemption but to be honest the protagonist does not change all that much and can't even take credit in my opinion for the main act of for which he is applauded. Tsotsi is scum - simple as! Stylistically the book is also a bit of a mess particularly towards the end where Fugard appears to have crowbarred in a) a conversation in achurchyard that comes totally out of nowhere and b)an unremarka...more

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Jul 29, 2009 Endah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sophiatown, Afrika Selatan, akhir 1950-an.

Seorang kulit hitam pekerja tambang emas, Gumboot Dhlamini, kedapatan tewas di kereta yang dtumpanginya dalam perjalanan pulang. Lelaki itu tewas secara mengenaskan. Di dadanya, tempat jantungnya bersemayam, menancap sebatang jari-jari sepeda. Ia korban aksi perampokan yang dilakukan sejumlah anak muda berandalan di bawah pimpinan seorang pemuda berjuluk Tsotsi. Dalam bahasa setempat, tsotsi adalah kata yang dipakai untuk menyebut seorang anggota gangst...more

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May 15, 2010 chucklesthescot rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: african, fiction, harsh-regime, worst-ever-books

Oh this book made me so damn mad! Official book reviews talk about a lost and angry young man rediscovering his humanity and compassion. Oh really? The 'hero' is murdering decent people for fun and striking terror into his community,then he tries to rape a young woman who is unlucky enough to encounter him and she escapes by shoving her baby in his arms and running for her life.

So he tries to look after the baby for a few days and that suddenly makes him a reformed character? We're meant to app...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Ben Fleagle added it

Shelves: recycling-bin-paper-weight

The idea for this book is brilliant. Sadly, Athol Fugard ruined a perfectly witty idea for a book with a a terrible writing structure. When Athol was getting his degree in creative writing I'm pretty sure all his professor taught him was types of imagery. Athol takes a perfectly good scene and ruins it by dragging out each and every step. I swear a few times he spent three pages writing about Tsotsi walking across a room.

The chapter where Tsotsi learns about his past is 28 pages long. I'm sorry...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Siria rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century, south-african-fiction

Tsotsi is a novel set in a South African township in the late Seventies, where a young nameless thug (the 'tsotsi' of the title) finds himself with a newborn to care for. I feel that this might have made a better drama or movie than it did a novel (indeed, it was made into a movie a few years ago); some of the characters are two-dimensional/symbolic enough on the page that I think they might have worked better in that medium. I've also seen some commentary online saying that this isn't a very ac...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Alondra rated it 3 of 5 stars

I personally did not like this book. Yes it has very insightful imagery, but that's not really what grabs my attention. If you are into very descriptive books then this is the one for you! The thing I liked was that the book was a fast read. It's not complicated to read, but a little complicated to understand. The book is about Tsotsi (which means thug) who grew up without parents, and his only family is the gang he joined. A random lady he tried to rape gave him a baby which turned out to chang...more

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Sep 17, 2012 Meg rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book itself is very deep, and it also really touches the reader deeply as well. I think that though not many of us have experienced the situations and needs of those in this setting, South Africa during apartheid, but we they are things that we know that we take for granted and can't hardly imagine what we would do without. Especially in the second half, I think the story got really intriguing in a way that I wanted to read past the assigned passage but could not because of other work. It's...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Jennifer Sumi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Tsotsi goes through several life stages throughout this book. He was a gang leader and this book gives some connections to the event of the Apartheid as he goes through the events of trying to remember his long-lost memory of his childhood. With the help of a baby, he slowly gains bits of pieces of his past together like a 3000 puzzle pieces put together as a whole.
“Tsotsi” has a good plot structure and the conflict in this book is filled with suspense. There is a lot of imagery...actually… "Tso...more

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Aug 31, 2012 David S. rated it 4 of 5 stars

So you think your a baller? Maybe think you come from a rough neighborhood? Think you seen some shit do ya? Well let me tell you there is no worse ghetto in the world then the slums of Johannesburg, South Africa in the 60's. Fuck peace and love life this place is dreary at best.
And this is where the character Tsotsi steps in, simply meaning thug in Nguni. Tsotsi is a child abandoned, growing up motherless and fatherless, digging through dumpsters and robbing and stealing with other bands of fer...more

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Apr 21, 2011 Nicholas Armstrong rated it 1 of 5 stars

Well, someone told me that, specifically, this is a post-modern book. There's a lot of it that is kind of stream of conscious stuff and god knows he doesn't follow grammatical rules, so I suppose this would be kind of post-modern. I dunno, whatever it is, I dislike it. The prose is lyrical, I guess, but not my kind. I also don't like how it jumps from one character to another with only a space and no clear distinction. Also, it kind of gives background on a lot of random characters that I don't...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Brenda Arellano rated it 3 of 5 stars

Tsotsi means “thug”. I personally somewhat liked this book. It wasn't the greatest book in the world, but I enjoyed it a lot. I thought it was interesting how the boy grew up without knowing what his name was. What I didn’t like was how the author took a whole paragraph just to describe something simple as a tree or a bush. It’s very insightful, but I thought it was a little too much. I thought it was interesting how he used some African language in it. I would reccomend this to someone that en...more

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Oct 14, 2009 indri rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to indri by: Pandasurya

Shelves: novel-abroad

tinggal mencari waktu..

***
Pura-pura nggak lihat catatan-catatan si empunya buku, supaya membaca tetap dalam imajinasi sendiri, saya merasa agak bosan di awalnya, namun ternyata penggambaran detilnya yang bagus, terperinci, dan terasa nyata, membuat saya menikmati buku ini.

Korban-korban pembunuhan digambarkan dengan sangat bagus. Tokoh kepala geng itu sendiri, Tsotsi digambarkan pada akhir cerita, juga kawannya si Boston, pemuda terpelajar yang terjebak dalam dunia hitam.

Untuk saya yang jarang me...more

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Nov 20, 2008 Molly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-4-school

Very powerful! The author's choice of words and events was astounding. Tsotsi is my definition of a well-crafted piece of literature. Everything is in some way connected to the story. I think the interesting and somewhat startling choice of events was very powerful and eye-opening to the horrors of apartheid. The main character, Tsotsi, is one that readers will grow fond of over the course of the story as he goes through immense changes. The ending would not have occurred to me at first as a way...more

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Apr 19, 2012 Sam Piper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reading-for-work, crime, fiction, other-cultures

Finished reading this now, waiting for students at school to catch up! If only some damn fool of a teacher just let them read it instead of teaching it and making them do work on it! Oh well!

This is an outstanding book! The quality of the writing literally glitters on the page and the novel reads more as a poem than a novel: I have never read such a lyrical piece of writing.

The novel revolves around the character of Tsotsi, a young man who is the leader of a gang of four thugs in Sophiatown, Jo...more Finished reading this now, waiting for students at school to catch up! If only some damn fool of a teacher just let them read it instead of teaching it and making them do work on it! Oh well!

This is an outstanding book! The quality of the writing literally glitters on the page and the novel reads more as a poem than a novel: I have never read such a lyrical piece of writing.

The novel revolves around the character of Tsotsi, a young man who is the leader of a gang of four thugs in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, South Africa in the 1950s. The name Tsotsi itself means "thug" or "gangster" and we are told in chapter one that it is a nickname: he has no recollection of almost any part of his past including his own name. Identity is a huge part of this novel: Tsotsi's lack of identity, his inability to construct his features in the mirror into a man with meaning; and his gradual realisation of who he is and how he came to be where he is by the end.

Tsotsi and his gang a clearly very shallow, violent characters lacking empathy with the people around them. Within three chapters, they have stabbed a man on a train, raped a woman in a shebeen, Tsotsi has beaten and "broken" another member of his gang and attempted to rape another woman. He is only stopped in the rape attempt when the woman thrusts a shoebox into his hands which contains a baby.

A word here about the Gavin Hood film of this book. The film updates the novel to the 21st century and seems to make Tsotsi younger and less hard than I had expected: he seems to stab the man on the train almost as a mistake, regretfully, when he starts to complain; he acquires the baby in the film by hijacking a car in the film and shoots the baby's mother and, again, seems to be an accident. In the book, Tsotsi is utterly remorseless: the murder on the train was a deliberate and calculated murder, not an unfortunate escalation of a robbery. He is shown as not simply accepting violence or being violent but as defining himself through violence and the hurt he deals to others.

I felt that the second half of the book was slightly less tightly structured and written than the first half. The section in the Church and the explicit Christian message seemed unnecessary to me; and the abruptness and ambiguity at the end if the book frustrated me.

In addition to the lyricism, which I mentioned before, what I did relish in the book were the minor characters: Gumboot Dhlamini, the victim on the train; Morris, whom he stalks in the middle of the book; and Miriam whom he forces to feed the baby. The power of these minor characters, inhabiting the furthest outskirts of society, is extraordinary. Their desperate perseverance to keep hold of their lives, whether toiling in the mines or crippled on the streets or waiting for a husband who will never return home, is genuine and authentic and utterly convincing.

13th February

Need to reread this for work and already blown away by the lyricism of the prose. This is a hugely character driven story and, from what I recall, Fugard makes them more than mere ciphers. The small moments of challenge between Tsotsi and Boston in Chapter One reveal Fugard's theatrical background.

Very lucky to have a job where reading books like this is "work"!

29th Feb

Reading the section in the book where Tsotsi runs from the slums of Sophiatown into the no man's land between the black and white areas, a liminal space in which the colours became bleached in the moonlight leaving "a prismatic, polished, gleaming world of white surfaces... A glacial white" in which the sounds become "hard, leaping, crystal" and the moonlight "lay around him in pools... Mobile as quicksilver". An absolutely stunning otherworldly (perhaps drug induced) description. And a moment later, Tsotsi will have the baby that will change his life thrust into his hands. Fabulous!(less)

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Feb 12, 2011 Imas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kelam...mungkin kata yg cocok menggambarkan novel ini.Tak terbayangkan negara yg begitu jahiliah berhasil menumbangkan pemerintahan apartheid dan berhasil pada tahun lalu menjadi tuan rumah Piala Dunia,bandingkan dengan Indonesia yang saat ini masih ribut soal ketua umum federasi sepakbola...halaaah..buku ini membuat kita merenung akan manusia yg bisa menjadi lebih jahat dari binatang atau bahkan setan sekali pun.Pengalaman hidup memang akan membentuk jiwa seseorang,tapi pada dasarnya setiap man...more

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Jan 29, 2013 Nura rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Setelah berdebu di sudut kamar selama dua tahun, akhirnya gw memberanikan diri membaca buku ini. Sempat agak ngeri mau baca setelah nonton filmnya. Terutama pas di bagian awal, adegan perampokan dan pembunuhan di kereta. serem banget, karena bisa saja hal itu terjadi sama gue. Tahu sendiri kalo naik KRL kayak gimana, apalagi di jam-jam kerja. Pelajaran pertama, seperti yang sering Bang Napi bilang, kejahatan terjadi bukan hanya karena ada niat pelaku, tapi kejahatan bisa terjadi karena ada kesem...more

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Oct 09, 2008 Azia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novel, afrika

Afrika Selatan adalah salah satu Negara Afrika yang dari segi ekonomi lebih baik dibandingkan Negara-negara afrika lainnya. Namun sejarah mencatat, perjalanan negeri ini memperjuangkan persamaan hak dari politik apartheid menarik perhatian. Penduduk asli benua Afrika adalah ras negroid, berkulit hitam. Secara de jure, yang berkuasa dan mendapat perlakuan istimewa adalah penduduk kulit putih. Diskriminasi yang juga terjadi tak hanya di Afrika Selatan tetapi juga di Amerika Serikat.

Perumahan kulit...more Afrika Selatan adalah salah satu Negara Afrika yang dari segi ekonomi lebih baik dibandingkan Negara-negara afrika lainnya. Namun sejarah mencatat, perjalanan negeri ini memperjuangkan persamaan hak dari politik apartheid menarik perhatian. Penduduk asli benua Afrika adalah ras negroid, berkulit hitam. Secara de jure, yang berkuasa dan mendapat perlakuan istimewa adalah penduduk kulit putih. Diskriminasi yang juga terjadi tak hanya di Afrika Selatan tetapi juga di Amerika Serikat.

Perumahan kulit hitam digusur untuk dibangun perumahan kulit putih. Warga kulit hitam hanya diperkenankan menjadi pembantu warga kulit putih. Setiap warga kulit hitam wajib memiliki buku izin yang harus ditandatangani majikan sebelumnya. Polisi sangat suka melakukan pemeriksaan buku izin dan jika buku izin tersebut tak ada, ditahan di penjara. Anak-anak menjadi pemulung dan terpisah dari orang tua mereka yang ditahan polisi. Mereka tak tahu mencari kemana perginya ibu dan ayahnya.

Kemiskinan yang ada membuat tingkat kriminalitas menjadi-jadi. Nyawa begitu murah, demi sekeping shilling, penny atau tickey, pencuri tidak hanya mengintai tapi jari-jari roda siap ditusukkan tepat di jantung. Senjata yang mematikan. Empat pemuda membentuk geng mereka sendiri, Tsotsi, Jagal, Die app, dan Boston. Tsotsi adalah pemimpin geng ini, dialah yang memutuskan korban berikutnya. Jagal adalah eksekutor jari-jari roda. Die app yang berbadan besar. Dan Boston si pintar namun pengecut. Mereka mengintai korban dari tempat-tempat ramai ; terminal dan stasiun. Sasaran empuknya adalah pekerja tambang yang hendak pulang ke rumah.

Tsotsi sendiri sudah tidak ingat asal usulnya dan tak mau mencari tahu . Nama tsotsi sendiri berarti penjahat. Boston yang suka berbicara banyak malah bertanya; siapa kamu tsotsi sebenarnya? Dari mana ia? Tapi yang paling mengusik tsotsi adalah pertanyaan tentang batin, apakah ada sesuatu yang membuatmu merasakan itu, perasaan beradab? Boston langsung mengarahkan pertanyaannya ke batin Tsotsi, sisi kehidupan yang jarang dikunjungi. Bosnton telah melakukan kesalahan karena telah bertanya. Tsotsi tak suka itu. Boston pun dihajar habis-habisan oleh tangannya sendiri. Itu akan terjadi akan terjadi akan terjadi suatu hari. Semoga Tuhan menolongmu hari itu, suatu hari, hari itu, suatu hari. Ucapan Boston yang babak belur dan nyaris sekarat.

Tsotsi berlari karena dengung ucapan Boston menggema di gendang telinganya. Ia bersandar di pepohonan kayu putih. Berpikir tentang apa yang dimaksud oleh temannya. Seorang wanita tergesa-gesa berjalan ke arahnya sambil memeluk erat kotak sepatu. Tsotsi melihat korban barunya, segera saja ia menyudutkan wanita tersebut ke pohon, menempelnya dengan ketat. Tangisan kecil dari kotak sepatulah yang menyelamatkan wanita tersebut dari pemerkosaan. Ia menyerahkan kotak sepatu ke tsotsi dan berlari meninggalkan tsotsi yang masih bingung dengan kotak sepatu tersebut. Ia menyingkap kain pembungkus yang bau dan disana terdapat dua mata kecil dan tangan mungil yang menggeliat-geliat, seorang bayi. Ingatan tentang seekor anjing betina bewarna kuning entah darimana tiba-tiba melintas di benaknya. Ia tahu ingatan tersebut berasal dari masa lalunya. Masih samar-samar dan kembali menghilang. Ia bisa saja membiarkan bayi itu ditinggalkan di pepohonan kayu putih, tapi yang dilakukannya adalah membawa pulang ke kamarnya.
Seorang ’sampah masyarakat’ mana tahu cara mengurus bayi, yang ia paham bagaimana menaklukkan korbannya dan menghabiskan uangnya di sheeben- tempat arak ilegal. Ia yang terbiasa menggunakan pisau lipatnya yang tajam untuk membunuh terketuk pintu hatinya melihat si bayi. Ketukan nurani itu masih lemah. Ia sendiri tidak tahu apa itu yang ia rasakan. Yang selama hidupnya hanya diliputi kegelapan batin. Ia tidak pernah merasa iba pada korban-korban. Tapi si bayi mungil..ya..hanya seorang bayi..memberikan setitik cahaya kecil di batin gelapnya.

Demi si bayi ia sengaja berjalan jauh dari rumahnya untuk membeli suusu dari toko India. Susu kental. Ia suapkan ke mulut rakus kecil ini. Ia ganti kain pembungkus bayi yang telah bau dan berwarna kuning dengan kemejanya.

Kehidupan Tsotsi pun bergulir kembali tanpa memberitahu teman-temannya. Tsotsi, jagal dan Die App kembali beraksi menyelusup kedalam keramaian terminal. Mereka berpencar. Tsotsi telah menjatuhkan pilihannya ke seorang pengemis jelek, kakinya sudah buntung, dan ia jelek sekali, Morris Tshabalala. Seharian Tsotsi mengikutinya dan Morris tahu ia diintai. Morris berhasil menempatkan dirinya di keramaian. Hingga di penghujung malam, ia terkejut, Tsotsi masih mengikutinya. Morris menggoyangkan dompet kain recehnya..cring..cring..dan ia letakkan di dekat tiang lampu. Seakan –akan memberikan kode morse, Ambillah uangku..jika itu yang kau mau..Tsotsi malah menendang tumpukan uang tersebut dan mengejar si Morris yang bergerak lamban. ”aku ingin hidup”, ujar Morris. ”Kau tahu itu?”. ”iya” jawab, tsotsi. ”tidak kau tidak pernah tahu”. Untuk pertama kalinya tsotsi melepaskan targetnya karena sesuatu perasaan yang disebut simpati.

Bayi dan pengemis membuat batin Tsotsi bertanya-tanya..sesuatu ini bernama apa? Ia tidak tahu. Cahaya-cahaya masa lalu kembali datang silih berganti. Ingatan masa kecilnya yang terputus. Tsotsi sama seperti manusia lainnya mempunyai Ibu. Suatu malam ketika ia masih bernama David berada di dekapan Ibunya, menanti dengan harapan Ayahnya akan kembali. Tepat tengah malam berbunyi sirene yang mengharuskan mereka melarikan diri, penggerebekan polisi. Ibunya ditahan, David terpisah. Semenjak itu ia berkumpul dengan anak-anak yang bernasib sama dan menjadi pemulung. Masa kecil Tsotsi ini menggambarkan bagaimana tindakan politik apartheid yang nyata. Anak sepuluh tahun yang terpisahkan dari keluarga harus belajar untuk mempertahankan hidupnya di jalanan. Tsotsi tidak pernah bertemu Ibunya lagi.

Tsotsi meninggalkan bayi kecilnya, ia menganggap bayi tersebut itu miliknya-ia yang menemukannya, di reruntuhan. Bayi tersebut nyaris sekarat. Tsotsi menghadang seorang wanita untuk menyusui bayinya. Pada awalnya, wanita itu menolak tapi melihat sang bayi, pintu hatinya terketuk. Tsotsi masih saja meninggalkan bayi di reruntuhan, ia tak menyadari tindakannya bisa membahayakan nyawa si bayi. Hingga suatu pagi, ia terbangun oleh bunyi raungan mesin penghancur yang ingin meratakan reruntuhan. Ia berlari..berlari kencang..detik waktu sangat berharga..dan akhirnya memberikan senyuman bagi Tsotsi. Berhasilkan ia?
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Aug 30, 2009 FicusFan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, africa, apartheid, book-groups, near-past, read-2009, read-8-09

This was a book that I read for a RL book group, although I had already purchased it for myself.

It is set in South Africa during apartheid in a township outside Johannesburg. The township, Sophiatown, was destroyed in the 50s, to make way for the white city to expand. The townships are the only place near the city where blacks can live.

The buildings are flimsy shacks made of odds and ends and the roads aren't paved. There is a communal water standpipe that blocks and blocks of people have to sha...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Tracie rated it 2 of 5 stars

I would give Tsotsi two stars at the most. In my opinion, this was an okay book. Tsotsi is very detailed, detailed to the point where it got really boring really fast, and to where you know every color and size of things that you don't necessarily need to know.Tsotsi would appeal to people who enjoy violent and very descriptive books. Athol Fugard, did however have some strengths. Some strengths include how he describes his characters.

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Jan 04, 2010 the little reader rated it 3 of 5 stars

i picked this up in the airport because i accidentally left my book at home. unfortunately, i already owned every other book in the store that i was remotely interested in reading, so i was stuck with this one. lucky for me, it turned out to be pretty good. its about a boy, or maybe a man (you never really find out), that is the leader of a small local gang. he has no recollection of his past, where he came from, what his name is, how old he is. an infant is dropped into his arms, abandoned and...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Jacob Craig rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: trash-can

The book was good but the author explained every little detail taking the reader's attention off of the maim plot. The book left the main plot to follow off topic things. the baby wasnt in a car and tsotsi didn't leave the mother to die she continued to run after handing the baby over to tsotsi.the ending sucked period. end of story. the why it was written made me want to cry.

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Jul 28, 2012 Joel rated it 3 of 5 stars

I feel like this was probably (supposed to be) capital G Good, but I could never quite warm to it. Tsotsi is such a cold and disaffected character; I understand that's part of the point, but I could never quite get passed it enough to be excited about his possible redemption. There are some beautiful passages, but in the end I was consistently more interested in the supporting characters than in the protagonist, so it just never quite clicked.

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Aug 21, 2007 Tara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mybookclub

I just finished this book and enjoyed it but felt extremely confused by the time I reached the end. My book club is reading it and I think it will garner a lot of really great discussion. This is a book about a street thug, named Tsotsi (which means thug) who is given a baby and his life begins to change. He begins to rethink the path his life is on and begins to remember things from his past that were long forgotten. I really liked Tsotsi and the transformation he goes through because of this b...more

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Mar 03, 2011 Cindy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary

A south African murderous thug remembers his past and reconnects a bit with his soul after acquiring an abandoned infant. I watched the movie first which had significant plot changes from the book, though many scenes were similar. I didn't really want to read it, but one of our librarians insisted I did.

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Feb 11, 2010 Tyree Myers rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is great. It tells the story of a heartless young man who steals a car with a baby in the back. He then steals the baby and leaves its mother for dead. While taking care of the baby Tsotsi starts to gain his heart back and become a joyful person, and leaves his thug life behind him.

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Aug 22, 2011 Suzi added it

This book is amazing!! I write that a lot, but this one really is. A proper proper look at South African gangs and the impact they have on the individuals and the gang members. Heart rendering, heart breaking and really truly worth the 3 hours it will take you to read it.

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About Athol Fugard

Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard (b. June 11, 1932, Middelburg, South Africa), better known as Athol Fugard, is a South African playwright, actor, and director. His wife, Sheila Fugard, and their daughter, Lisa Fugard, are also writers.

Athol Fugard was born of an Irish Roman Catholic father and an Afrikaner mother. He considers himself an Afrikaner, but writes in English to reach a larger audience. Hi...more Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard (b. June 11, 1932, Middelburg, South Africa), better known as Athol Fugard, is a South African playwright, actor, and director. His wife, Sheila Fugard, and their daughter, Lisa Fugard, are also writers.

Athol Fugard was born of an Irish Roman Catholic father and an Afrikaner mother. He considers himself an Afrikaner, but writes in English to reach a larger audience. His family moved to Port Elizabeth soon after he was born. In 1938, he was enrolled at the Marist Brothers College — a Catholic primary school (although he is not known to be a Roman Catholic). After being awarded a scholarship, he enrolled at the local technical college for his secondary education. He then enrolled in the University of Cape Town but dropped out. He sailed around the world working on ships (mainly in the Far East).

Fugard married Sheila Meiring, now known as Sheila Fugard, then an actress in one of his plays, in September 1956. She later became a novelist and poet in her own right. They started the Serpent Players in Port Elizabeth before moving to Johannesburg where he was employed as a court clerk.

Working in the court environment and seeing how the Africans suffered under the pass laws provided Fugard with a firsthand insight into the injustice and pain of apartheid.

Working with a group of black actors (including Zakes Mokae), Fugard wrote his first play No Good Friday. Returning to Port Elizabeth in the early 1960s, he worked with a group of actors whose first performance was in the former snake pit of the zoo, hence the name The Serpent Players.

The political slant of his plays bought him into conflict with the government. In order to avoid prosecution, he started to take his plays overseas. After Blood Knot, was produced in England, his passport was withdrawn for four years. In 1962, he publicly supported an international boycott against segregated theatre audiences which led to further restrictions.

He worked extensively with two black actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona and workshopped three plays viz. Sizwe Banzi is Dead, The Island and Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act.

The early plays workshopped with Kani and Ntshona were staged in black areas for a night and then the cast moved to the next venue – probably a dimly lit church hall or community centre. The audience was normally poor migrant labourers and the residents of hostels in the townships. The plays at this time were political and mirrored the frustrations in the lives of the audience. Fugard's plays drew the audience into the drama, they would applaud, cry and interject their own opinions. Fugard used feedback from the audience to improve the plays – expanding the parts that worked and deleting the ones that did not.

For example in Sizwe Banzi is Dead, migrant worker Bansi can only survive by assuming someone else's identity and getting the important apartheid pass in order to get a job. When he debates how Sizwe would effectively “die” and whether the sacrifice would be worth it, the audience would cry out “Go on, Do it,” because they appreciated that without a pass you were effectively a non-entity.

Sets and props were improvised from whatever was available which helps to explain the minimalist sets that productions of these plays utilise. In 1971, the restrictions against Fugard were eased, allowing him to travel to England in order to direct Boesman and Lena. Master Harold...and the Boys, written in 1982 is a semi-autobiographical work.

Fugard showed he was against injustice on both sides of the fence with his play My Children! My Africa! where he attacked the ANC for deciding to boycott African schools as he realised the damage it would cause a generation of African pupils. With the demise of apartheid, Fugard's first two postapartheid plays Valley Song and The Captain's Tiger focused on personal rather than political issues.

His plays are regularly produced and have won many awa(less)

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Quotes from Tsotsi

“To know nothing about yourself is to be constantly in danger of nothingness, those voids of non-being over which a man walks the tightrope of his life.” — 7 people liked it

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