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Title: Mine Boy Author: Peter Abrahams Genre: Novel/Race/Love Publishers: Heinemann (African Writers Series) Year of Publication: 1946 (this edition, 1989) Country: South Africa For the Top 100 Books Challenge 'You say you understand,' Xuma said, 'but how can you? You are a white man. You do not carry a pass. You do not know how it feels to be stopped by a policeman in the street. You go where you like. You do not know how it feels when they say "Get out! White people only." Did your woman leave you because she is mad with wanting the same things the white man has? ... That is understanding. The understanding of the heart and the pain of understanding, not just the head and lips. I feel things! You want me to be your friend. How can I be your friend when your people do this to me and my people?' (Page 172)   And this serves as my summary of the novel Mine Boy, a story about love and race published two years before the official implementation of ap...

Today's Friday Quotes come from a book I would be reviewing next week. Usually, I review before the quote but I have been slow in my reading for some time now and so do not have an already read book to quote from. Mine Boy  by Peter Abrahams is described as the first modern novel of black South Africa. This is also the first novel I have read by a black South African. Note that it was published in 1946, two years before the institution of apartheid in 1948. I am no good and I cannot help myself. It will be right if you hate me. You should beat me. But inside me there is something wrong. And it is because I want the things of the white people. I want to be like the white people and go where they go and do the things they do and I am black. I cannot help it. Inside I am not black and I do not want to be a black person. (Page 60) The only place where he was completely free was underground in the mines. There he was a master and knew his way. There he did not even fear his white man,...