A Burning Hunger: One Family's Struggle Against Apartheid

by Lynda Schuster

A Burning One Family's Struggle Against Apartheid

Genres: South Africa, History, Nonfiction, Africa

451 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Worked as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor in Africa, Central and South America, and the Middle East.

Reviews

[Muphyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book on the struggle of one family, the Mashininis, under apartheid in South Africa, focussing on the Soweto uprisings in 1976 and life thereafter. It gives you some real insight into life in the townships, and the rawness and cruelty that went on. I was really fascinated!

Written from an American journalist's perspective, it's very well researched, and I think Schuster does a fantastic job portraying what went on behind the Soweto uprisings, and what the consequences were for those involved. Schuster tries not to be too biased, which is always hard but I think she walks the tight rope quite nicely. I read it when I was actually in South Africa last year, and I found it quite interesting that the white people I was in contact with there didn't think much of me reading such a book...

[K.L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if I enjoyed this book because it was very personal in some ways, but it was a brilliant evocative read that I was completely unable to put down - and when I did it was only to Google history that I had forgotten I knew. An incredibly heart wrenching story yet heart warming too, and well worth a read to anyone - but especially to South Africans of my generation that were probably as unaware as I was of what was happening! Eye opening!!!