Mine Boy

(...) For me, this book was amazing and much more potent than say Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country. In fact, the two do not necessarily warrant comparison except for the fact that Paton's book is the only classic South African novel that is ever considered part of the World Lit canon taught in U.S. schools, which is a damn shame because the African continent--like the others--has produced some spectacular creative works. Some of the other readers have complained of the simplicity of Abraham's language or "cardboard" characters. For me, it's that very simplicity that makes the story such a dramatic tale; it's language that anyone can understand. It's primitive, if you will, or embryonic. As for the characters being underdeveloped, again, I think this adds to the effectiveness of this particular story. Caste systems, apartheid, and other types of sanctioned discrimination force people to come across as stereotypes. When we view our neighbors as "other," we're not seeing them as fully human. So for me, I got what I needed from Mine Boy, which I consider a must read. It put me in a time and place that I would not have experienced otherwise despite the universality of feeling that comes with the hardships of life.

Xuma is a black country boy who moves to Johannesburg to look for work in the gold mines. Upon his arrival in town, a strong but kind woman named Leah takes him into her bootlegging household. She introduces him to Eliza, the girl Xuma loves but can't have, and Maisy, the girl he can have but doesn't want. He is given a rude awakening to race relations in the city and witnesses first-hand the brutality of the Johannesburg police force. While Xuma's great strength makes him a successful mine boy, he remains a second-class citizen under the apartheid regime. As the novel closes, Xuma's boss and friend Paddy helps him finally come to the realization that blacks and whites can be brothers after all.

Peter Abrahams has certainly written an unsung novel here, which is devastatingly simple (in some places too simple), concentrating on the story of Xuma, a young man who has moved from the North of South Africa (Vrededorp) to the hate-filled apartheid world of Johannesburg. Filling it up with supporting characters which are rather cardboard (the black girl who dreams of being white, the drunken South Africans, the sympathetic white man) does not help, but nonetheless instead of spitefully showing us the huge hate Abrahams may hold for the apartheid system, we instead hear the story of Xuma coping in Jo'burg, with all the horrors being just there in the background. Abrahams does not emerge with a conclusion of black superiority and that whites should leave, but through Xuma, we very clearly see that both races should just get along. For anyone with a serious interest in apartheid, this book is a must!

Without coming across as overly bitter or spiteful, Abrahams gives us an unrivaled peek into the oppressive conditions the black man faces living under a white minority regime. The hopes and aspirations of an entire race seem to rest with our hero- Mine Boy. Little did the old guard of the old White South African establishment realize the role this seemingly harmless little book would play in bringing down their carefully constructed appartheid society.

Great book that is very easy to read. It reveals the story of a man in transition, torn between life in the city and life on the countryside. The story takes place in Johannesburg/RSA and was among the first books that show the lives of Blacks in a white-dominated country