The Assassin: A Story of Race and Rage in the Land of Apartheid

by Henk van Woerden, Dan Jacobson

On September 6, 1966, Dimitri Tsafendas entered South Africa's parliament, gripping a wickedly long knife, and stabbed Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd four times in the chest. This chilling study of the life of Tsafendas―the homeless, stateless, and loveless illegitimate son of a Greek father and a black African mother―gives us acrystalline vision of the tragic consequences of apartheid.

Genres: Biography, South Africa, Africa, Nonfiction, History

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Born in 1956.

Reviews

[AC Fick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This small book, in which Van Woerden goes in search of the gaps in the stories of Dmitri Tsafendas, reveals much that those of us interested in and affected by twentieth century South Africa's trajectory from colonial outpost to independent state would find surprising and revealing, both of the past and of the present.

Always resisting polemic and sentimentality, this book unveils the continuities between the mis-remembered past rewritten for political convenience, and the dis-ease of the present, with its active and continued elision of the past. As a personal portrait of Tsafendas, Van Woerden's book is compelling; as a diagnosis of the society and world Tsafendas lived through, mostly as an enigma, the book is devastatingly truthful.

Thoroughly recommended.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting account of the events that led Demitrios Tsafendas to murder Hendrik Verwoerd, the father of Apartheid. It's extremely well told and shows a South Africa, and indeed other areas of southern Africa, that has not changed as much as some would think.

The translation from the Dutch was done by Dan Jacobson, who is a great writer in his own right.

[Dylan Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Assassin gives an interesting look into the life of the man who killed the father of South African apartheid. Dimitri Tsafendas lived a harsh life that, as you read, will make it incredibly difficult to not sympathize with him to some extent. He was stuck between races, between homes, between countries. Striped of an identity, almost as if never given one in the first place. His whole life spent rejected and ostracized. You can easily connect the dots and see why Tsafendas did what he did during his stint as parliament messenger, almost as if his life was a full circle in progress and he was completing the final inch to connect the two ends. Henk van Woerden wraps the book up nicely at the end describing his experience meeting Tsafendas. From the words it is obvious that Tsafendas is in no better state, mentally, than before his admission to the clinic he was in at the end of his life. But still, from the conversations quoted, he seemed to maintain as high a spirit as possible, fighting the instability of his emotions and his faulty memory. Tsafendas was not just a mentally unstable man, not just a murderer. He was an imperfect human who wanted the chance to have a normal life of dignity and peace. He exaggerated and had no problem bending the truth here and there, but he saw the world beyond the lines drawn by ruling powers. A dreamer, a man of many trades, an interesting personality. I could go on, the story of Dimitri Tsafendas really is intriguing. Woerden did a great job making The Assassin as easy to read as possible considering the inferences that had to be made to fill in gaps between documentation and primary sourcing. some of the descriptive notes fall flat in my opinion, but nothing bad enough to make the story unreadable. Overall would recommend reading.

[Matilde Mateus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trouxe este livro de uma feira de trocas, sem saber nada sobre ele e sem grandes expectativas. Revelou-se uma grande surpresa: construído de forma organizada e minuciosa, é uma biografia do assassino de um primeiro-ministro da África do Sul, cujo assassinato ocorreu em 1966 e marcou o ponto de viragem rumo à abolição do apartheid e integração racial no país. Fez-me lembrar o livro “A Sangue Frio” de Truman Capote: ambos acompanham a vida de assassinos, o crime cometido pelos mesmos e seu contexto; ambos são “não ficção” tão envolvente que se lê como ficção e em ambos o respetivo autor esteve em contacto direto com o perpetrador, acabando por deixar transparecer empatia na sua escrita para com ele(s). Embora gostasse que certos aspetos tivessem sido mais aprofundados (como as motivações do assassino e as doenças que aparentava ter), é um livro muito interessante, que revela o extenso e cuidadoso trabalho de pesquisa realizado pelo autor. Li a versão portuguesa (“Boca cheia de vidros, editora temas e debates) que, curiosamente, não se encontra presente no GoodReads.

[Adrian]

Short book about the life of Demitrios Tsafendis the man who assassinated South African president Hendrik Verwoerd in 1966. The assailant was a half caste with roots in Mozambique who lived a strange life of family displacement, odd jobs and rootless wandering. Arrested in several countries he also spent time in mental hospitals in Germany and the US. He spent thirty years in a South African ward after the murder where the author met and talked with him in 1998. Strangely discomfitting and affecting read at the same time.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant read, very interesting and quite heart rending, I didn't think I would feel sorry for Demitrios. At the end I found myself crying for a man who had lst his sanity. Loved it!

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facinating and tragic look into the life of Dimitri Tsafendas who murdered Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd chief architect of aparthied.

[Emiliano Bussolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutale come la vita, vasto come la mente umana, irrinunciabile come un gran gran libro.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A haunting, evocative account of Demitrios Tsafendas, who stabbed the Apartheid President Verwoerd.