Publisher's Synopsis
It is 2020 and the essayist - a brilliant scholar, social logistician, and expert of distinction, traverses the unsettling and unnerving issue of racism. However, in this, the Third Edition of the book, Wardle does more than just draw from her experiences growing up in a racially diverse family in Parkridge, East London; to parents whose genealogical tentacles extend from Tsomo in the Eastern Cape, to Newcastle upon Tyne. And, whilst still reliant on the First Edition's contributions from esteemed and eminent persons, in both the front and the back matter, Wardle has turned the tables upside down. The chapters are more engaging, the book has been re-arranged. The Author's Preface is different, it is fast-paced and gripping. In the current Chapter One, Wardle delves into the definitions of 'Native', 'Bastard', 'Hottentot', 'Griqua' and 'Coloured', as set out in legislation under Apartheid. She then incorporates case law and selected texts from Fakir v Rex, Tshwete v Rex, Le Fleur v Rex, Keimoes v Moller, Dunn v Rex and related cases. As usual, Wardle delivers her narrative professionally, 'with a flourish of satire and admirable finesse'. The author's wounds have healed, and she equates herself to a gnarled olive tree, one which sprung to life and sprouted from the roots of an ancient tree which was so diseased and hollowed-out by life's trials and tribulations, that those who had chopped it down, assumed that it was gone for good; a modern-day Lazarus. One, whom many had thought, was no longer capable of reincarnation and resurrection. However, from a single, determined root, buried deep in the ground, new life emerged. This is a woman who is determined not to be relegated to the dustbin of history as simply, another black face on a mug shot. She is wrestling with demons as this edition is penned under the most trying circumstances. The depth and the raw emotion in the Afterword invites even those who had purchased the First Edition, to indulge by drinking from the fountain of her literary genius again! She takes a knee, a wounded one, but a knee nonetheless in honour of George Floyd, Steve Biko, and Colins Khosa and all those like them, who were obliterated from the face of the earth but not, from the collective memories of our human struggles! This - is a MUST READ!
