David's Story

Unfolding in South Africa, at the moment of Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1991, this novel explores the life and vision of a male activist through the pen of a female narrator. David Dirkse is part of the underground world of activists, spies and saboteurs in the liberation movement -- a world seldom revealed to outsiders. With 'time to think' after the unbanning of the movement, David is researching his roots in history of the mixed-race 'Coloured' people of South Africa and of their antecedents among the indigenous people and early colonial settlers. Provides compelling history that is vividly personal, through the powerful filter of storytelling. Through voices that weave together -- responding to, illuminating, and sometimes contradicting one another -- Wicomb depicts a world where 'truth upon conflicting truth wriggles into shape'. The dramatic and violent turns at the close of the novel further testify to the complexity of truth -- and of telling.