Blame me on History by Bloke Modisane, Panther ¢/- ‘“VENHERE are very few things
which can be as irritating as the smug understanding of those jokers who profess to know what it would like to be black in South Africa . . . I submit, respectfully, that it is beyond academic comprehension.” I agree. We have heard what happens there: here we are shown the reaction of one man, and although without the experience we shall probably not understand, if you want a glimmering of the appalling effects of doubting one’s own humanity, feeling deprived and emasculated as Bloke Modisane felt, then read this devastatingly honest book. If you do, for it is not a pleasant experience to be shown a man who comes to feel that, if he is to be human, he must try to be white, who is tormented into becoming as depraved as the society he lives in, and who adopts the un-name “Bloke” in place of his original “William”. His attempts to escape from his blackness are futile, as that is the wrong thing to escape from, and eventually he leaves the country.
Jean Holman
Fidel Castro: Declaration of Santiago—t /- 7 E. J. Hobsbawn: Labouring Men —£2/15/0 G. D. H. Cole: Chartist Portraits Essays in Local Government — edited by Ellis Hillman—15/- The REAL Cuba as_ three Canadians Saw [t—2/- Add 10% to cover postage. Order from Pioneer Book Service,
Box No. 985, The Week,
“Kaffirs are Livelier”
by O. Walker; Muller, 21/-