A taste of bitter almonds - Perdition and promise in South Africa (PB)M Schmidt (OUT OF PRINT NEW)

A taste of bitter almonds - Perdition and promise inSouth Africa (PB)Michael Schmidt(OUT OF PRINT NEW)

1994 Symbolised the triumphal defeat of almost three and ahalf centuries of racial separation since the Dutch East India Company planteda bitter almond hedge to keep indigenous people out of `their' Cape outpost in1659. But for the majority of people in the world's most unequal society, thetaste of bitter almonds linger as their exclusion from a dignified life remainthe rule. In the year of South Africa's troubled coming-of-age, veteraninvestigative journalist Michael Schmidt brings to bear 21 years of hisscribbled field notes to weave a tapestry of the view from below: here in thedemi-monde of our transition from autocracy to democracy, in the half-lightglow of the rusted rainbow, you will meet neo-Nazis and the newly dispossessed,Boers and Bushmen, black illegal coal miners and a bank robber, witches andwastrels, love children and land claimants. With their feet in the mud, theBorn Free youth have their eyes on the stars.