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Title: Bitter Fruit
Subtitle: A Novel
Author: Achmat Dangor
Narrator: Tug Yourgrau
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-27-16
Publisher: Audible Studios
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Fiction, Literary
Publisher's Summary:
With the publication of Kafka's Curse, Achmat Dangor established himself as an utterly singular voice in South African fiction. His new novel, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the IMPAC-Dublin Literary Award, is a clear-eyed, witty, yet deeply serious look at South Africa's political history and its damaging legacy in the lives of those who live there. The last time Silas Ali encountered Lieutenant Du Boise, Silas was locked in the back of a police van and the lieutenant was conducting a vicious assault on Silas's wife, Lydia, in revenge for her husband's participation in Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. When Silas sees Du Boise by chance 20 years later, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is about to deliver its report, crimes from the past erupt into the present, splintering the Alis' fragile peace. Meanwhile Silas and Lydia's son, Mikey, a thoroughly contemporary young hip-hop lothario, contends in unforeseen ways with his parents' pasts. A harrowing story of a brittle family on the crossroads of history and a fearless skewering of the pieties of revolutionary movements, Bitter Fruit is a cautionary tale of how we do, or do not, address the past's deepest wounds.
Members Reviews:
A Strong Story That Takes Time to Digest
Achmat Dangor has framed a small history of South Africa around Silas Ali, his fractious family and a cohort of erstwhile comrades in the liberation movement. In the opening pages, we meet Silas' nemesis, Francois du Boise and do not "see' him again until near the closing. Yet throughout the story, it is Du Boise's terrorist shadow that stalks Silas, his wife Lydia and by extension their son, Michael. The characters are developed fully, their dialogue is realistic and their behaviors are believable. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission as the backdrop, is a useful metaphor for the characters' approaches to the many themes. On the other hand, the book is hindered by Dangor's tackling too many themes - and trying to connect them. This bogged down the story's movement. The writing is smart, poetic, and the turn of phrase is often surprisingly brilliant. Given a stronger, more satisfying ending, I would have rated this book four stars.
One of the best books of post-Apartheid South Africa
A couple years ago Desmond Tutu landed in hot water for saying that South Africans had lost their innate sense of right and wrong. While the level of violence that has become normal in the country may have many roots, Dangor explores how Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission helped shape (or misshape) South African mores. More adeptly than any other book I've read of the post-Apartheid era, Dangor explores the tension that rises from the new social contract. How can one determine right from wrong when murderers and rapists are forgiven so long as they claim political motive?
The novel is set in the twilight of Mandela's administration as the task of transition is over and the magnitude of the problems of crime, violence against women, corruption and AIDS are becoming clear. The novel examines the impact of a rape through view of the woman, her husband and her son. The writing is superb. Unlike Disgrace, you won't find cardboard cutouts shuffling around a desolate landscape. Bitter Fruit may be a sharp critique of South Africa but it is also hopeful.