Product Description

In 1987, after a twelve year absence, Chistopher Hope returned to South Africa to report on the run up to that year's whites-only election. The nature of the election campaign and the bitter defeat of the liberals lead him to write this satirical, evocative portrait of what it looked and felt like growing up in a country gripped by an absurd, racist insanity. Full of exquisite and despairing descriptions of the landscape the White Boy is running through, this mordantly witty account of escape, displacement and disolusionment is a mordern classic of journalistic memoir.

'beautifully written' - The Times

'mocking, angry and beautiful' - Washington Post

'exactly the right note of cold, poetic irony' - Financial Times

'exquisite and despairing' - Newsday

'An exceptional book' - Los Angeles Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135776 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
"'beautifully written' - The Times; 'mocking, angry and beautiful' - Washington Post; 'exactly the right note of cold, poetic irony' - Financial Times; 'exquisite and despairing' - Newsday; 'An exceptional book' - Los Angeles Times"

About the Author

Christopher Hope was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1944. He is the author of twelve novels including Kruger’s Alp, winner of the Whitbread Novel Award, and the Booker short-listed Serenity House. Hope’s non-fiction includes a travel book, Moscow! Moscow!, which won a PEN Award and most recently Brothers Under The Skin a reflection on the nature of tyranny. He lives in France.

Customer Reviews

The lunacy of apartheid
Like Christopher Hope, I grew up in South Africa. I have found other books by him captured the essence of the apartheid years - "Me, the Moon and Elvis Presley" and "The Lovesongs of Alfred J Swirsky" in particular. The latter was for me a revisiting of parts of my childhood in the fictional Johanesburg suburb Badminton. In "White Boy Running" the author confirmed my conviction that the suburb was in fact Sandringham, with houses reserved for former members of the South African forces in the Second World War and that our fathers had been "up North" during the war. Not only that, we lived in the same street and may well have been neighbours for about four years. For me "White Boy Running" is possibly the best book on the absurdities of apartheid, the cruelty, the warped thinking and the pettiness. Imagine "Black Beauty" was banned and the Japanese were recategorized as honorary Whites so they could stay in luxury hotels when in South Africa to do business! If you want to understand the thinking of many Whites in the apartheid years, read this book. It will make you angry and frustrated at the stupidity but you will also laugh at some of the absurdities. We are now in a new era but this book is a reminder of what was and how long it will take to repair the damage.