Conditional Tense : After the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The South African past is eating away at the Rainbow Nation. The accumulative effects of 300 years of colonialism, many frontier wars, the Anglo-Boer War, the displaced millions after forced removals, racism, capitalist exploitation and the devastation of AIDS are the fires stoking crime and corruption. And yet . . .
 
Using the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as starting point, acclaimed South African writer Antjie Krog’s essays explore texts from black women, Afrikaner men, African philosophers, Mandela comic strips, an Archbishop and a Nobel Prize winner to find traces of a new vocabulary. With a mixture of academic and poetic voices, it is an attempt to move beyond the brief banks of the single body towards the vulnerable and a vocabulary of grace and care. (jacket)