My Traitor's Heart

My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience by Rian Malan, Grove Press, 2009. 

The Boers of South Africa

This memoir was written before the end of apartheid. The author’s ancestors were Boers, also called Afrikaners, descendants of the Dutch colonists of southern Africa. Boer stock was the most racist segment of South African society. The author describes how brutally his ancestors, the Boers, treated blacks. The Boers did not care for the British, either. The author worked as a crime reporter and tells how many white police abused black citizens. But he is equally critical of the many blacks who have brutally treated innocent white citizens of South Africa. One is left feeling pessimistic for the future of South Africa.