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The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning
A dozen years in the making, The Inheritors weaves together the stories of three ordinary South Africans over five tumultuous decades in a sweeping and exquisite look at what really happens when a country resolves to end white supremacy.
Dipuo grew up on the south side of a mine dump that segregated Johannesburg’s black townships from the white-only city. Some nights, she hiked to the top. To a South African teenager in the 1980s—even an anti-apartheid activist like Dipuo—the divide that separated her from the glittering lights on the other side appeared eternal. But in 1994, the world’s last explicit racial segregationist regime collapsed to make way for something unprecedented.
With penetrating psychological insight, intimate reporting, and bewitching prose, The Inheritors tells the story of a country in the throes of a great reckoning. Through the lives of Dipuo, her daughter Malaika, and Christo—one of the last white South Africans drafted to fight for the apartheid regime—award-winning journalist Eve Fairbanks probes what happens when people once locked into certain kinds of power relations find their status shifting. Observing subtle truths about race and power that extend well beyond national borders, she explores questions that preoccupy so many of us today: How can we let go of our pasts, as individuals and as countries? How should historical debts be paid? And how can a person live an honorable life in a society that—for better or worse—they no longer recognize?
Dipuo grew up on the south side of a mine dump that segregated Johannesburg’s black townships from the white-only city. Some nights, she hiked to the top. To a South African teenager in the 1980s—even an anti-apartheid activist like Dipuo—the divide that separated her from the glittering lights on the other side appeared eternal. But in 1994, the world’s last explicit racial segregationist regime collapsed to make way for something unprecedented.
With penetrating psychological insight, intimate reporting, and bewitching prose, The Inheritors tells the story of a country in the throes of a great reckoning. Through the lives of Dipuo, her daughter Malaika, and Christo—one of the last white South Africans drafted to fight for the apartheid regime—award-winning journalist Eve Fairbanks probes what happens when people once locked into certain kinds of power relations find their status shifting. Observing subtle truths about race and power that extend well beyond national borders, she explores questions that preoccupy so many of us today: How can we let go of our pasts, as individuals and as countries? How should historical debts be paid? And how can a person live an honorable life in a society that—for better or worse—they no longer recognize?
416 pages, Hardcover
First published July 19, 2022
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August 29, 2022
I have extremely mixed feelings about this book. I bought it on the strength of a long excerpt published in The Guardian, about SA's black farmers. That piece was sharp, insightful, nuanced, and deeply empathetic, but while those strengths are present in the book, overall it is let down by the writer's apparent insistence on first drawing her conclusions (in a form of crowd psychoanalysis), and interpreting what people actually say to support that. It's often a bit more than a reach; she'll present a quote, then say "in other words" and write a paragraph that bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the words or substance of that quote.
The outsider perspective on SA (Fairbanks is American) is of course valuable in pointing out much of the the deep dysfunction of SA society. And she can't be accused of a superficial view; she has truly immersed herself in the country, over time, through historical as well as contemporary research. But her interpretations can range from facile to bizarre. Given the profoundly racialized impact of HIV in SA in the 1990s, there's nothing racist about the preponderance of safe sex campaigning in the townships. Similarly, she cites statistics that South African suburbs were "no less safe" than any European city at that time – 1990s-2000s – along with a discrepancy between police records and self-reported incidents, concluding that many reports of home break-ins were fantasies. Not lies: she claims that white South Africans actually *imagined* that they had experienced these invasions, to support an internal narrative of victimhood.
I don't know what's behind the statistical discrepancy but I am very sure that there was no mass hallucination. That would be one hell of a story, but she presents zero evidence. Similarly, having moved from SA to London in 2002, I'd strongly disagree with the notion that London was just as unsafe; I don't think it's normal, in Europe, to know multiple murder victims. South Africans often do.
Not that I'd want to dwell on the crime rate. Crime is a symptom of deep inequality, deprivation and racial trauma, and that is rightly the focus of this book. But these unmotivated claims threw me, as a reader, and made it harder to embrace her overall narrative. I also got frustrated by what reads as no-win judgment of white South Africans: the progressives are hypocrites, the racists are at least honest – even as she acknowledges the bind progressives are in (there's literally nothing you can do, as an individual, to live "fairly" in this desperately unequal society).
One other criticism is perhaps an inevitable result of its strength: SA's intricately layered racial structure is reduced to simply black vs Afrikaner. English whites, coloureds or Indians are not really even mentioned. That seems like a notable omission, though most of the text is given over to the in-depth narratives of just three people (a member of the 32 Battalion who joined just too late to see actual combat; a Sowetan freedom fighter and her Africanist daughter). Adding more characters would have reduced the scope to do them justice. But it contributed to my sense that the whole book was an exercise in projecting the author's American perspective of racial conflict onto South Africa.
The outsider perspective on SA (Fairbanks is American) is of course valuable in pointing out much of the the deep dysfunction of SA society. And she can't be accused of a superficial view; she has truly immersed herself in the country, over time, through historical as well as contemporary research. But her interpretations can range from facile to bizarre. Given the profoundly racialized impact of HIV in SA in the 1990s, there's nothing racist about the preponderance of safe sex campaigning in the townships. Similarly, she cites statistics that South African suburbs were "no less safe" than any European city at that time – 1990s-2000s – along with a discrepancy between police records and self-reported incidents, concluding that many reports of home break-ins were fantasies. Not lies: she claims that white South Africans actually *imagined* that they had experienced these invasions, to support an internal narrative of victimhood.
I don't know what's behind the statistical discrepancy but I am very sure that there was no mass hallucination. That would be one hell of a story, but she presents zero evidence. Similarly, having moved from SA to London in 2002, I'd strongly disagree with the notion that London was just as unsafe; I don't think it's normal, in Europe, to know multiple murder victims. South Africans often do.
Not that I'd want to dwell on the crime rate. Crime is a symptom of deep inequality, deprivation and racial trauma, and that is rightly the focus of this book. But these unmotivated claims threw me, as a reader, and made it harder to embrace her overall narrative. I also got frustrated by what reads as no-win judgment of white South Africans: the progressives are hypocrites, the racists are at least honest – even as she acknowledges the bind progressives are in (there's literally nothing you can do, as an individual, to live "fairly" in this desperately unequal society).
One other criticism is perhaps an inevitable result of its strength: SA's intricately layered racial structure is reduced to simply black vs Afrikaner. English whites, coloureds or Indians are not really even mentioned. That seems like a notable omission, though most of the text is given over to the in-depth narratives of just three people (a member of the 32 Battalion who joined just too late to see actual combat; a Sowetan freedom fighter and her Africanist daughter). Adding more characters would have reduced the scope to do them justice. But it contributed to my sense that the whole book was an exercise in projecting the author's American perspective of racial conflict onto South Africa.
August 11, 2022
Fair disclosure, went to the same HS as the author, but didn't overlap at all, just have social media overlap with her.
Wow. I spent a little over a week in Durban in the late '80s, when Apartheid was still very much a thing, and I was a freshman in HS, and it was very weird, and I have REALLY wondered about how things have changed over the years. This covered enough time with enough different people, even though it focused really on only three, that I was able to get a sense of how things have changed that makes sense to me, even with the limited amount of information that permeates an American's awareness of other countries.
Probably the best narrative non-fiction I've read in a really long while. I'm now stuck as far as what to listen to next, which is always high praise, when nothing else grabs me after reading something that really struck me.
Wow. I spent a little over a week in Durban in the late '80s, when Apartheid was still very much a thing, and I was a freshman in HS, and it was very weird, and I have REALLY wondered about how things have changed over the years. This covered enough time with enough different people, even though it focused really on only three, that I was able to get a sense of how things have changed that makes sense to me, even with the limited amount of information that permeates an American's awareness of other countries.
Probably the best narrative non-fiction I've read in a really long while. I'm now stuck as far as what to listen to next, which is always high praise, when nothing else grabs me after reading something that really struck me.
July 19, 2022
Caveat: I am a Facebook acquaintance of the author and received an early copy of the book in exchange for an objective, unbiased review.
"The Inheritors" by Eve Fairbanks is not the sort of non-fiction I usually read, but I really enjoyed it. Ms. Fairbanks, an American ex-pat living in South Africa, takes us in some detail through the lives of 3 individuals living through the changes wrought by the end of Apartheid. Christo, a white Afrikaaner who fought as a soldier for the apartheid regime, Dipuo, a black anti-apartheid activist, and Malaika, her daughter. Fairbanks normally writes long magazine pieces, and indeed the book has that sort of feel to it, with the author herself briefly appearing in the narrative here and there, as we experience some of her efforts researching the book as well as what her subjects actually tell her.
The book is heavily slanted toward examining the effects of the end of apartheid, rather than the causes of it, and so if you are looking for a detailed political examination of how the change happened, look elsewhere. Fairbanks is most interested in the complex emotions that both white and black South Africans feel post-apartheid - the backlash among some whites, how others clung to their few black friends as a way to expiate their guilt, how some upwardly mobile black South Africans (which some of the poorer blacks called "Black Diamonds") became more "white" in their actions and attitudes, living in walled neighborhoods and being fearful of poor black people on the street. They began to openly doubt the ability of blacks to govern well, and secretly wonder if they would be better of with whites back in power. Sadly, it seemed, the end of apartheid solved some problems only to create all sorts of new ones. Varities of self-loathing seemed rampant among both black and white South Africans, for different reasons.
Some of the complexities facing the new government were fascinating - take farming. Under apartheid, whites owned 90% of farmland, and what blacks were allowed was barren and useless. Under the new, black-led government, farmland was purchased by the government, and redistributed to aspiring black farmers, but they were generally poorly educated and unprepared to deal with the problems of modern farming. Increasing the challenge was the fact that South Africa had a bit of a monopoly under apartheid (as few countries would trade with them) and as part of a global community, now had to compete in the global marketplace. Small and midlevel farmers, regardless of education or experience, struggled.
One vignette in the book struck me as heartbreakingly sad. At one point, the author and a black South African friend named Elliot visit a former white settlement located within a black "homeland" that Elliot had loved as a child, called Penge. The author was struck by how unimpressive and run-down it was, until Elliot explains that he had loved it BECAUSE it was a white spot. At one point, they reach an disused high school surrounded by fencing, where they discover a poor, skinny, self-appointed "security guard" living in the school. He had stayed there for 9 years, keeping the building safe from vandals and people scavenging materials, hoping that one day the white people would return and reward him for his diligance. He shows Eve and Elliot his favorite room in the school - a pristine bathroom that he kept spotlessly free of dust and spiders. But in all the 9 years, he never used it. He dug himself a latrine out back instead, feeling that the immaculate bathroom was reserved for white people.
Ms. Fairbanks writes well, with emotional resonance, and she has a particular knack for tone, in crafting her presentation of these very personal stories. I did sometimes feel like the book need further clarity, though, as I would run into passages that either were slightly too elaborate in sentence structure or left out clear transitions, leaving me slightly puzzled as to what the author's intent was. I also wouldn't have minded a little more historical context for things - I suspect that the author and/or her editor were trying to keep the book from being overly long, but I personally would have enjoyed it being longer. Nonetheless, the book is very thoughtful, readable, and fascinating, and I recommend it.
"The Inheritors" by Eve Fairbanks is not the sort of non-fiction I usually read, but I really enjoyed it. Ms. Fairbanks, an American ex-pat living in South Africa, takes us in some detail through the lives of 3 individuals living through the changes wrought by the end of Apartheid. Christo, a white Afrikaaner who fought as a soldier for the apartheid regime, Dipuo, a black anti-apartheid activist, and Malaika, her daughter. Fairbanks normally writes long magazine pieces, and indeed the book has that sort of feel to it, with the author herself briefly appearing in the narrative here and there, as we experience some of her efforts researching the book as well as what her subjects actually tell her.
The book is heavily slanted toward examining the effects of the end of apartheid, rather than the causes of it, and so if you are looking for a detailed political examination of how the change happened, look elsewhere. Fairbanks is most interested in the complex emotions that both white and black South Africans feel post-apartheid - the backlash among some whites, how others clung to their few black friends as a way to expiate their guilt, how some upwardly mobile black South Africans (which some of the poorer blacks called "Black Diamonds") became more "white" in their actions and attitudes, living in walled neighborhoods and being fearful of poor black people on the street. They began to openly doubt the ability of blacks to govern well, and secretly wonder if they would be better of with whites back in power. Sadly, it seemed, the end of apartheid solved some problems only to create all sorts of new ones. Varities of self-loathing seemed rampant among both black and white South Africans, for different reasons.
Some of the complexities facing the new government were fascinating - take farming. Under apartheid, whites owned 90% of farmland, and what blacks were allowed was barren and useless. Under the new, black-led government, farmland was purchased by the government, and redistributed to aspiring black farmers, but they were generally poorly educated and unprepared to deal with the problems of modern farming. Increasing the challenge was the fact that South Africa had a bit of a monopoly under apartheid (as few countries would trade with them) and as part of a global community, now had to compete in the global marketplace. Small and midlevel farmers, regardless of education or experience, struggled.
One vignette in the book struck me as heartbreakingly sad. At one point, the author and a black South African friend named Elliot visit a former white settlement located within a black "homeland" that Elliot had loved as a child, called Penge. The author was struck by how unimpressive and run-down it was, until Elliot explains that he had loved it BECAUSE it was a white spot. At one point, they reach an disused high school surrounded by fencing, where they discover a poor, skinny, self-appointed "security guard" living in the school. He had stayed there for 9 years, keeping the building safe from vandals and people scavenging materials, hoping that one day the white people would return and reward him for his diligance. He shows Eve and Elliot his favorite room in the school - a pristine bathroom that he kept spotlessly free of dust and spiders. But in all the 9 years, he never used it. He dug himself a latrine out back instead, feeling that the immaculate bathroom was reserved for white people.
Ms. Fairbanks writes well, with emotional resonance, and she has a particular knack for tone, in crafting her presentation of these very personal stories. I did sometimes feel like the book need further clarity, though, as I would run into passages that either were slightly too elaborate in sentence structure or left out clear transitions, leaving me slightly puzzled as to what the author's intent was. I also wouldn't have minded a little more historical context for things - I suspect that the author and/or her editor were trying to keep the book from being overly long, but I personally would have enjoyed it being longer. Nonetheless, the book is very thoughtful, readable, and fascinating, and I recommend it.
November 11, 2022
For much of the time I spend reading a book, I think about what I want to say in a written review. For Eve Fairbanks’ “The Inheritors,” two quotes familiar enough to anyone who lives in a world of books immediately came to mind. The first is perhaps Faulkner’s most famous one-liner from Requiem for a Nun: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The second recapitulates the first but adds to it in an important and psychologically insightful way. It’s the last sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Of course, what Fitzgerald means is that despite our efforts to create progress (or what we think is progress), we are nonetheless haunted by history’s complex legacy.
In 1994, when Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) were put into power in South Africa’s first post-Apartheid election, many people had an understandable sense of hope and the possibility of new beginnings. Nearly a decade on from that historic victory, however, South Africa is still plagued with the selfsame set of racial and economic disparities and high unemployment rates that existed during Apartheid. Was there anything else to inherit beside grand hopes and expectations from the end of the Apartheid that had dehumanized Black South Africans since 1948?
Here she turns her attention to this question with acute psychological insight. Fairbanks was born and raised in the United States but moved to South Africa a little over a decade ago. With a clear interest in people and how they adjust to political and cultural change, she tells the story of a small handful of people as they attempt to navigate their lives under Mandela’s government. There is Dipuo, an anti-Apartheid activist who has spent half her life working against the old regime; Malaika, her daughter, who was born too late to remember much of Apartheid but whose experiences are still vicariously shaped by it via her mother’s activism; and the white racist Afrikaner Christo who used to do the old regime’s dirty work by attacking those who fought against Apartheid. Fairbanks writes their storis by recounting the details of their lives, activism, relationships, and everyday experiences. She displays an amount of empathy that is hard to fathom, even for the repulsive Christo, whose motives as a liberal outsider she ceaselessly tries to intimately understand.
For me, this is history of the best kind. Narrative history can be told in several different ways, from a dry-as-hay recounting of historical facts to the “Great Man” idea of history that favors monarchs, aristocrats, generals, and the like. Thankfully, this eschews both of those equally. It reads at a clip, much of it dialogue-driven. The lives analyzed are not the lives of people you know. They’re ordinary South Africans leading very average, quotidian lives. While “The Inheritors” is not written for anyone with any specialized knowledge of South African politics, Fairbanks does introduce those bits as they intermittently illuminate the story she tells but she never loses sight of Dipuo, Malaika, and Christo.
While she is obviously interested in the changing hopes, dreams, and expectations of these figures, sometimes they fall into the background as she dives into the greater cultural zeitgeist of the country. She is deeply invested in the psychological effects of racism. White people wonder why Black people never tried to rise up and destroy them. This imbued in many whites a deep and abiding inferiority complex. Why did whites insist on seeing an act of reconciliation as a humiliation and degradation when it presumably was a good faith offer to reset the clock without any fear of reprisal? Fairbanks is a careful and instinctive psychologist of the angst and anxiety that pervaded, and continues to pervade, the white elite. She is just as adept at investigating the same race-based questions that haunt Black South Africans. As fascinating and engaging as the stories of Dipuo, Malaika and Christo are, her analyses of these questions were by far my favorite part of the book. It’s as if she has taken the insights of a whole host of black intellectuals from W. E. B. Du Bois to Franz Fanon and have recast them in the political context of Mandela’s South Africa without ever sacrificing their rigor or the deeply human cast they bring to her story.
Fairbanks mentions at the beginning of “The Inheritors” that South African Apartheid collapses the wide swath of time from antebellum America through the present into a period of less than thirty years. Her book is a quiet, poignant, and very convincing reminder that history can both shatter the manacles from our hands in an act of liberation and frustrate our efforts just as Fitzgerald’s paddle does, both nudging us forward and simultaneously pulling us ceaselessly into the past.
In 1994, when Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) were put into power in South Africa’s first post-Apartheid election, many people had an understandable sense of hope and the possibility of new beginnings. Nearly a decade on from that historic victory, however, South Africa is still plagued with the selfsame set of racial and economic disparities and high unemployment rates that existed during Apartheid. Was there anything else to inherit beside grand hopes and expectations from the end of the Apartheid that had dehumanized Black South Africans since 1948?
Here she turns her attention to this question with acute psychological insight. Fairbanks was born and raised in the United States but moved to South Africa a little over a decade ago. With a clear interest in people and how they adjust to political and cultural change, she tells the story of a small handful of people as they attempt to navigate their lives under Mandela’s government. There is Dipuo, an anti-Apartheid activist who has spent half her life working against the old regime; Malaika, her daughter, who was born too late to remember much of Apartheid but whose experiences are still vicariously shaped by it via her mother’s activism; and the white racist Afrikaner Christo who used to do the old regime’s dirty work by attacking those who fought against Apartheid. Fairbanks writes their storis by recounting the details of their lives, activism, relationships, and everyday experiences. She displays an amount of empathy that is hard to fathom, even for the repulsive Christo, whose motives as a liberal outsider she ceaselessly tries to intimately understand.
For me, this is history of the best kind. Narrative history can be told in several different ways, from a dry-as-hay recounting of historical facts to the “Great Man” idea of history that favors monarchs, aristocrats, generals, and the like. Thankfully, this eschews both of those equally. It reads at a clip, much of it dialogue-driven. The lives analyzed are not the lives of people you know. They’re ordinary South Africans leading very average, quotidian lives. While “The Inheritors” is not written for anyone with any specialized knowledge of South African politics, Fairbanks does introduce those bits as they intermittently illuminate the story she tells but she never loses sight of Dipuo, Malaika, and Christo.
While she is obviously interested in the changing hopes, dreams, and expectations of these figures, sometimes they fall into the background as she dives into the greater cultural zeitgeist of the country. She is deeply invested in the psychological effects of racism. White people wonder why Black people never tried to rise up and destroy them. This imbued in many whites a deep and abiding inferiority complex. Why did whites insist on seeing an act of reconciliation as a humiliation and degradation when it presumably was a good faith offer to reset the clock without any fear of reprisal? Fairbanks is a careful and instinctive psychologist of the angst and anxiety that pervaded, and continues to pervade, the white elite. She is just as adept at investigating the same race-based questions that haunt Black South Africans. As fascinating and engaging as the stories of Dipuo, Malaika and Christo are, her analyses of these questions were by far my favorite part of the book. It’s as if she has taken the insights of a whole host of black intellectuals from W. E. B. Du Bois to Franz Fanon and have recast them in the political context of Mandela’s South Africa without ever sacrificing their rigor or the deeply human cast they bring to her story.
Fairbanks mentions at the beginning of “The Inheritors” that South African Apartheid collapses the wide swath of time from antebellum America through the present into a period of less than thirty years. Her book is a quiet, poignant, and very convincing reminder that history can both shatter the manacles from our hands in an act of liberation and frustrate our efforts just as Fitzgerald’s paddle does, both nudging us forward and simultaneously pulling us ceaselessly into the past.
June 30, 2022
Eve Fairbanks is a beautiful writer who explores an ugly subject with a piercing eye and an even hand. Apartheid’s murderous boot stomped the neck of many Black lives and stained many white souls, and the people she befriends (both Black and white) carry the mark of Cain. Her book, while explaining the broad strokes of its history, instead focuses on complex resilience of Apartheid’s victims and the dreadful, painful existence of even its beneficiaries. More importantly, we sit alongside Blacks and whites who are left to deal with the political, cultural, economic, and emotional aftermath — warts and all. Without polemics, Fairbanks surgically separates the “what we’re supposed to say and feel” from the actual experience of a post-Apartheid culture. Americans will see themselves in part — but, critically, not in whole — in those trying to answer freedom’s key question: What the hell do we do now?
September 30, 2022
Generally, don’t write reviews on vacation, but this is an important one to discover regarding a truly rich view of pre and post-apartheid in South Africa. Very thought provoking!
July 9, 2023
This is the sort of book that’s very up my alley - what does the big sweep of history look like for the regular people who live in it? This one is beautifully written, challenging and ambivalent, the clear result of a lot of careful work. It is by its nature inconclusive, but insightful and full of detail.
July 27, 2022
This is a book where the author explores an ugly subject with a piercing eye and an even hand. I am not sure how much people are aware of how bad Apartheid was and how it poisoned so many people, Black and white and the after affects of all that once Apartheid was abolished.
Told from the perspective of three people that the author was friends with [with personal reflections from the author and other people she has known], this book is full of emotions and thought-provoking dialogue. Mixed with history [both true and what was perceived by these three people], it is a very compelling tale that at times made me so angry I could hardly continue and at times made me weep so hard I could not see the page and the end was just heartbreaking. It would seem that there is no real happy ending here - South Africa continues to suffer and struggle to find peace out of the chaos that ruled it for so long.
This is a well-written book that you will not be sorry you read. I learned so much.
Thank you to NetGalley, Eve Fairbanks, and Simon and Schuster for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Told from the perspective of three people that the author was friends with [with personal reflections from the author and other people she has known], this book is full of emotions and thought-provoking dialogue. Mixed with history [both true and what was perceived by these three people], it is a very compelling tale that at times made me so angry I could hardly continue and at times made me weep so hard I could not see the page and the end was just heartbreaking. It would seem that there is no real happy ending here - South Africa continues to suffer and struggle to find peace out of the chaos that ruled it for so long.
This is a well-written book that you will not be sorry you read. I learned so much.
Thank you to NetGalley, Eve Fairbanks, and Simon and Schuster for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
July 19, 2023
As far as I am concerned, ‘The Inheritors’ by Eve Fairbanks is one of the best sociology books on race that has been published in post-apartheid South Africa to date. Eve Fairbanks’ portrayal of her research participants is an instantiation of sociological imagination at its finest. In this book, Eve Fairbanks competently interweaves South African history with personal stories of her research participants to paint a sociological picture of how the legacy of apartheid structures the lives of her research participants. Fairbanks is a great story teller. A motif that runs through her story is the old philosophical adage that “There is a social hierarchy that structures the way in which each of us is able to live her or his life and
that structures the way in which we are able to live together.” – Mandisi Majavu
that structures the way in which we are able to live together.” – Mandisi Majavu
September 12, 2023
Such a good book. It's complicated, nuanced, and compelling.
March 7, 2022
A decent attempt at studying interrelations of post-apartheid South Africa through the eyes of two families, one Afrikaans and one black, but it fails in many attempts to make appropriate connections. The final section spend its fifty pages trying to pull together the anecdotes and ideas from the previous 320, but is unable to draw many serious conclusions. It is stuck between a biography, memoir, and history, but in a way that it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Fairbanks fails at presenting herself at the start of the book as a white Jewish woman, saving that revelation until the final chapter. One can understand that she wanted to keep herself out of the book until it became important for her to be part of the story, but this undercuts her topic. She continually refers to white journalists being naive to the double standards of which they write because they are not taking into account their own white privilege, yet Fairbanks does this throughout the entirety of the book. Are we to assume because she grew up with a father who took her to Civil War battlefields throughout the mid-Atlantic that she is white? Isn’t that assumption problematic on many levels—especially when writing a text on race?
Finally, the book purports to offer a glimpse into how America at this moment can learn from post-apartheid South Africa’s failures at being the Edenic interracial beacon that the world ascribed it upon Mandela’s rise to leadership. The text dives into the issues surrounding why this was an impossible dream to begin with given the power structures that Afrikaner’s had put in place for so many decades, yet it never delivers on the idea that this could be a warning for our own shift in power structure. This claim feels like one the author was not interested in focusing on and that the publisher is forcing onto the book to make it more au currant.
The writing and stories within the book are very good, the book just falls apart in the structure both internal and put upon it, which is a shame. I got a more intricate reading on these same issues from a small part of Wilderson’s brilliant Afropessimism than is contained in this book.
Finally, the book purports to offer a glimpse into how America at this moment can learn from post-apartheid South Africa’s failures at being the Edenic interracial beacon that the world ascribed it upon Mandela’s rise to leadership. The text dives into the issues surrounding why this was an impossible dream to begin with given the power structures that Afrikaner’s had put in place for so many decades, yet it never delivers on the idea that this could be a warning for our own shift in power structure. This claim feels like one the author was not interested in focusing on and that the publisher is forcing onto the book to make it more au currant.
The writing and stories within the book are very good, the book just falls apart in the structure both internal and put upon it, which is a shame. I got a more intricate reading on these same issues from a small part of Wilderson’s brilliant Afropessimism than is contained in this book.
September 20, 2023
This book was really a lot to take in!!! It’s very informative and thought-provoking doesn’t quite read like a typical nonfiction which is why I think I enjoyed most of it. Throughout the book we get a lot of history, personal experiences, and encounters from those during the pre and post apartheid era. It’s mainly told from the perspective of three characters Dipuo, her daughter Malaika, and Christo who was one of the last white South Africans drafted to fight for the apartheid regime.
I found it quite interesting that the author chose to go in depth on how the apartheid systemically hindered the development of blacks in South Africa. The personal stories of the 3 MC’s were the highlight of the book. A lot of their POVs centered around apartheid seemed to anchor a lot of trauma, anger, jealousy, resentment, or guilt.
The experiences during Apartheid were quite different for Dipuo and Malaika than it had been for Christo. I realized the main issue was that Black South Africans were upset at how little progress the country made when it came to the inequalities shared between those who were black opposed to those who were white. They claimed an end to white supremacy yet white privilege was still very prevalent. At one point the author made comparisons of racism in the US to what they’ve experienced in South Africa. Her discussion on the similarities could’ve gone in depth a little more.
Overall, I actually learned a lot while reading this it wasn’t something I could just breeze through. I’d recommend to someone who wants to learn a little more about South Africa’s history. It’s very complex and could have been a few chapters shorter in some parts the author rambles a bit. This wasn’t a book full of happy stories either so be prepared it’s heavy on the suffering. Special thanks to the author & @simonbooks for my gifted copy!!!
I found it quite interesting that the author chose to go in depth on how the apartheid systemically hindered the development of blacks in South Africa. The personal stories of the 3 MC’s were the highlight of the book. A lot of their POVs centered around apartheid seemed to anchor a lot of trauma, anger, jealousy, resentment, or guilt.
The experiences during Apartheid were quite different for Dipuo and Malaika than it had been for Christo. I realized the main issue was that Black South Africans were upset at how little progress the country made when it came to the inequalities shared between those who were black opposed to those who were white. They claimed an end to white supremacy yet white privilege was still very prevalent. At one point the author made comparisons of racism in the US to what they’ve experienced in South Africa. Her discussion on the similarities could’ve gone in depth a little more.
Overall, I actually learned a lot while reading this it wasn’t something I could just breeze through. I’d recommend to someone who wants to learn a little more about South Africa’s history. It’s very complex and could have been a few chapters shorter in some parts the author rambles a bit. This wasn’t a book full of happy stories either so be prepared it’s heavy on the suffering. Special thanks to the author & @simonbooks for my gifted copy!!!
January 31, 2023
I learned a lot more about the end of apartheid in South Africa and how challenging that was for all involved. Interesting illustration of how even much needed change can be difficult for those who live through it.
Read
January 16, 2024A través de tres testimonis que van viure, sobretot, la transició post-apartheid a Sud-àfrica, tant des del seu punt de vista de les seves vides personals com el del país. S'hi recullen totes les llums i ombres del procés, sobretot ombres, més enllà del paper messiànic de Mandela.
August 3, 2022
Eve Fairbanks excels as tour guide, historian, and faithful story teller about the enigma that is South Africa, in "The Inheritors." Living more than a decade in country, building relationships with many South Africans, gives her a level of depth rarely found even in long form reporting.
Using memories and then-current views of some of the people she met, and got to know very well, Ms. Fairbanks weaves a rich tale encompassing South Africa's mythic past, sudden transformation, and unscripted future. We learn the tale of Christo, the Afrikaner farmer's son, who adapts to apartheid's fall by not only embracing nostalgia for the Afrikaner pioneers, but creates his own myth in the process. Contrast his path to that of Dipuo, from Soweto, who joined the struggle with the ANC as a teenager, and finds herself in that rare place, getting what she fought for. And that naturally leads to the question, what comes next?
And perhaps it is her daughter, Malaika, who best fits the book's title. She is the inheritor of her mother's victory, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have her own challenges to face, or fight.
Striking, more than many ideas discussed, is the sense that South Africa is still out of balance, even if the nation never, actually was in balance. There are contradictions of inequity everywhere, be it the luxury of the resort towns, versus the continuing harshness of life in the townships. As well, there is the growing sense of white grievance hoarding, pitted against the liberated Blacks' uncertainty about what this liberty means, and/or should even provide?
Try as I intend, not to lift any of Ms. Fairbanks' exquisite prose, I do want to mention her reporting of the way Malaika's generation invokes ANC martyr, Steve Biko. Truly ironic, when he is invoked over the more mundane aspects of life for the liberated in South Africa. But bittersweet, when the matter is more pressing, urgent, existential.
You will gain a good deal of insight into what Steve Biko fought for, and against, in "The Inheritors." You should also gain understanding about where America and South Africa are alike, and as well, very different. But the book is first and foremost about the continuing enigma that is South Africa. If you want a human's eye view of where they are, and where they have have been? Ms. Fairbanks will show you that view. And as well, you will gain some institutional depth. But the story is more about the people, than the nation. But isn't a nation more its people than anything else? Read "The Inheritors," and discover for yourself.
September 15, 2023
I lived in South Africa for over 25 years, yet I never felt like I could see the full picture. I still don’t, and perhaps never will, yet this beautiful book has certainly opened up complexities that I have previously conveniently overlooked, or oversimplified, or turned a blind eye on. For a stranger such as myself, it is unusual to pick a place and call it home, yet South Africa does feel like one. Does this story have a good or a bad ending? Does this country have a good or a bad ending? Well. Perhaps it has no intention of ending altogether, or any time soon.
August 9, 2022
What an amazing book. it helped me rethink so many notions I took for granted. Grace, forgiveness, Justice, equity… It puts a different spin to dying to whiteness and the whole concept of cheap grace. Reconciliation is not so easy and should not be attempted in ignorance lest generations after pay the price
June 6, 2022
Eve Fairbanks tells us the story of the end of Apartheid and the years following. To reflect on these times, she has chosen four people to tell their stories. Full of facts and emotion, this is an absolutely fascinating read!
December 4, 2023
A remarkable book. I don’t know that a chapter went by that didn’t leave me thinking with a greater empathy, understanding, or complexity. I can’t recommend it more highly.
February 22, 2023
Fascinating examination of experiences from a number of individuals in post-apartheid South Africa. The American author recounts the conversations she has had with South Africans (telling their story) and her observations. She moved to Cape Town in 2009, later relocated to Johannesburg and in this book hopes to understand how regular South Africans confront their inheritance. We specifically follow three main characters, with whom she has spoken; Dipuo, an activist from Soweto; Dipuo’s daughter Malaika; and a former special forces officer named Christo. These show how blacks and whites lived in the shadow after Apartheid. Alongside these, several things the author has seen or further conversations she has had show how blacks starved on farms that were sold to them despite them not understanding anything about farming, about how in Townships upward mobility was shown through nice cars and therefore this is what people spent their first pay check on – meaning that Townships are often full of fancy cars and driving schools, how black people deliberately were tolerant of the whites (Afrikaaners) in order to not stoop to their level and how whites dealt with the loss of supremacy, how white people could not step into jobs previously held by blacks (such as working in a kitchen) even if they wanted to, how they felt like they needed punishing but the blacks would not do it and therefore they end up crippled with guilt and many other stories from individuals and how some groups of extremist believe that white South Africans are now oppressed and excluded from government. Taken together this collection of stories provides a look into the human flaws and hopes that flourished and conversely suffer, thereby demonstrating the human aftermath of Apartheid and gives Global audiences a glimpse into the struggle that South Africa faces when reckoning with its history. It also paints an picture of the two groups of people are not yet equal – despite their guilt and feelings of marginalisation, it was white South Africans who benefited most from the end of Apartheid as their companies could now part taken in a Global economy and thereby increased their wealth.
One interesting thing to note is that there could be no kind of “Nürenberg trials”, as the blacks knew that the whites did not believe they could fairly judge their guilt. Another interesting thing is that the president after Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, was an accomplished academy but doubted the American science of HIV and AIDS and for many years banned the medication after it was readily available in the US, because he did not trust the white people and felt it was a conspiracy to demonstrate black incompetence in government (HIV/AIDS denialism).
We also get a fascinating look at how South Africans see the rest of Africa and how Africans see South Africa via Malaika’s travels around Africa and further accounts the author has heard.
This book is very much an outsider’s view, but it is an outsider who seems to have made a genuine effort to connect with the people that Apartheid impacted and who must live with its legacy. At times the book shows deep compassion for the South Africans grappling with their inheritance, while at other times the lack of naming additional characters and the number of anecdotes coming from these people starts to feel a little weird. Overall this book seems like a slice of society, culture, history and politics from South Africa with personal accounts sprinkled in but without the proper acknowledgement (this could have for example been achieved through footnotes which lead to an Appendix where each person mentioned gets one paragraph to present themselves. This would have allowed the author to maintain her big picture documentation while giving the individuals who helped her learn about this country a little more humanity). Additionally although she inserts herself in the book in sometimes documenting the conversations she has with people or what the people she knows have allowed her to see/experience, she never tries to apply anything that it is evident/implicit that South Africans must learn about forgiveness, tolerance and love. She does not reflect on her status as a White American who started her study of South Africa by wondering about a Confederate general or her Jewish mother, who may influence the author’s racial politics, though apparently does not as she never mentions it and she also mentions South Africa’s Indian and mixed-race community incredibly rarely and instead focuses only on the binary of Black and White. Her personal interrogation and reflection on where her interest in South Africa comes from is absent and this could have made this book GREAT, nevertheless what the book does achieve is being a very interesting entry point into normal people in South Africa albeit from a strange voyeur.
One interesting thing to note is that there could be no kind of “Nürenberg trials”, as the blacks knew that the whites did not believe they could fairly judge their guilt. Another interesting thing is that the president after Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, was an accomplished academy but doubted the American science of HIV and AIDS and for many years banned the medication after it was readily available in the US, because he did not trust the white people and felt it was a conspiracy to demonstrate black incompetence in government (HIV/AIDS denialism).
We also get a fascinating look at how South Africans see the rest of Africa and how Africans see South Africa via Malaika’s travels around Africa and further accounts the author has heard.
This book is very much an outsider’s view, but it is an outsider who seems to have made a genuine effort to connect with the people that Apartheid impacted and who must live with its legacy. At times the book shows deep compassion for the South Africans grappling with their inheritance, while at other times the lack of naming additional characters and the number of anecdotes coming from these people starts to feel a little weird. Overall this book seems like a slice of society, culture, history and politics from South Africa with personal accounts sprinkled in but without the proper acknowledgement (this could have for example been achieved through footnotes which lead to an Appendix where each person mentioned gets one paragraph to present themselves. This would have allowed the author to maintain her big picture documentation while giving the individuals who helped her learn about this country a little more humanity). Additionally although she inserts herself in the book in sometimes documenting the conversations she has with people or what the people she knows have allowed her to see/experience, she never tries to apply anything that it is evident/implicit that South Africans must learn about forgiveness, tolerance and love. She does not reflect on her status as a White American who started her study of South Africa by wondering about a Confederate general or her Jewish mother, who may influence the author’s racial politics, though apparently does not as she never mentions it and she also mentions South Africa’s Indian and mixed-race community incredibly rarely and instead focuses only on the binary of Black and White. Her personal interrogation and reflection on where her interest in South Africa comes from is absent and this could have made this book GREAT, nevertheless what the book does achieve is being a very interesting entry point into normal people in South Africa albeit from a strange voyeur.
August 13, 2022
"The Inheritors" by Eve Fairbanks.
The title refers to the generation that lives in the post-apartheid era in South Africa, e.g., 1994-present. The book is a personalized history - or better, a recounting - of this era through the eyes of several people. This is an extremely well-written and timely book and I cannot recommend enough. IMHO, this is a book that is relevant for Americans as it shines a mirror on our own situation so bright it may as well be a panel on the James Webb telescope.
I think "The Inheritors" serves as an effective rebuttal to a constant refrain we hear a lot from the Right: why should we further liberalize society when you look at a place like South Africa and when liberalized things have just gone to Hell? What Fairbanks ably demonstrates is that SA was never liberalized as much as you think and that troubles there are not all, or even close to all, the fault of elected ANC leaders.
The two main protagonists are Gen-Xers who grew up during apartheid: Dipuo, a resident of Soweto, anti-apartheid activist (sometimes violent), and mother to Malaika in her early 20's, from her first consensual sexual encounter; and Christou, a child of white farmers who was one of the last SA Special Forces trained for war in Angola. In both case, the end of apartheid turned their worlds upside down in ways neither could have imagined.
For Dipuo, the end of apartheid was supposed to bring new opportunities and a better life. Instead, she remains in the squalor of Soweto. She has the occasional success, getting jobs with an NGO and as an executive assistant in a private firm, only to lose it all. Around her, she sees whites who have given up very little in exchange for a new, non-pariah status. Her daughter Malaika is educated in a formerly white school but is still treated as an Other. Malaika eventually becomes an activist in her own right, and receives what is insincere plaudits from white audiences.
For Christou, who was expecting to thrive in the Border Wars as part of the lionized 3-2 Special Forces Battalion, the end of apartheid came suddenly, without warning, and with terrible consequences for Christou. Upon completion of his training, his transport to Angola is canceled at the last minute and his Battalion, the heroes of the white regime, is labeled an "embarrassment" by F W de Klerk and other leaders eager to see the end of apartheid. Christou becomes part of a detachment with pro-Western Angolans and kills a homeless man in the confusion. Christou is now considered a murderer and must defend himself. Eventually he does and becomes an attorney, but in the backlash of his and his peers becoming paraiahs, is taken with Afrikaner pride and becomes a dorm father at the Free State University in Bloemfontain for an all-white Afrikaner-themed dorm. His experiences seem to haunt him and also seem to be a microcosm for the white population in post-apartheid SA.
The point is that so many people are disappointed: Blacks who dreamed of at least sharing in the country's vast wealth do not seem better off and in many cases seem worse off (save for a few Black "Diamonds"; whites who only see potholes and have increased fear of crime.
The truth, as Fairbanks explains, is quite convoluted and SA is merely a small player in the world and subject to its whims. Apartheid ended not because of violent struggle but because white SA was being economically strangled by powerful foreigners who had had about enough of apartheid. Black and White elites who guided the country through transition agreed that sudden and violent redistribution of wealth would lead to a mass exodus of whites and their wealth and Black-led SA would die in its crib. By agreeing to democratic elections and remaining (largely) in the country, whites gave up very little practical power - although they no longer ran the gov't, they maintained and even increased their wealth and many who had the means cut themselves off further from greater society with high walls, etc.
Meanwhile, SA as a whole has had to struggle with providing basic needs such as electricity to more than twice as many people as it had to during apartheid. Fairbanks points out that the post-apartheid gov't has increased electricity output greatly but not enough for everyone to have what they need 24/7. This goes for road repairs and whatnot. From the White perspective, they notice things breaking down and just assume the gov't is incompetent and the apartheid gov't just worked better when in fact it just worked, period, for about 20% of the population. These things are worth considering when setting expectations of transitioning a country from minority rule to majority rule without excluding anyone.
I think the story of SA is of great interest to us in America because, well, it is our story. Apartheid after all was modeled on the Jim Crow South! It may have been far more formal and had the advantage of lack of restraint of the US Constitution, but the ideas were taken from us. I will link in the comments to W.F. Buckley, the HoF Conservative who was anti-Civil Rights and very pro-apartheid for that reason, interviewing SA President B.J. Vorster about apartheid and how the SA gov't treats "our blacks." I highly recommend watching the video because Buckley provides such clarity about the attitudes of the American Right c. 1970's with regard to the nightmare they imagined liberals posed, a nightmare we are told "Democrat mayors" are today promulgating in their cities night after night by Tucker Carlson and his ilk and is one main reason why a crook like Trump has any traction whatsoever.
Fairbanks makes only a passing reference to White SA'icans who emigrated after transition, and infers that many of those that did eventually returned. I'd like to add something personal here.
When I moved to Sydney in 1995, I had three friends from Rochester, my advisor and his family, and some new friends at Sydney Uni, but I needed a social life outside of Physics. So I made some friends in the Jewish Students Union. It turned out that the friends I made the most quickly and meaningfully were themselves recent immigrants from S. Africa (mainly Cape Town, but also JoBerg and Durban). These friends and their families treated me like one of their own and I never wanted for a Shabbos meal or Holiday invite and I even joined up at their shul in St Ives. I never really asked them why they emigrated, although as Jews in apartheid SA I imagine there was a degree of discomfort: their white skin got them privileges other minorities were denied, but their Jewishness made them remain Others. The threat of the end of apartheid must have added to their discomfort intensely enough to upend their families like that. My befriending these families fired up my interest in SA and I have read quite a bit, including "The Boer War" by Thomas Packenham which is the best history of anything I have ever read.
Anyway...Fairbanks moved to SA in 2009. I knew of her from her journalism at the New Republic in the mid-late-2000's, when it was still worth reading. In the book, she recounts her experiences as an American, an Other (Jewish), and a liberal and her perspectives add a lot of context to the story. The writing is sharp, erudite, personal, and always interesting. I listened to the audiobook version on my recent long walks and the narrator was rock-steady and conveyed Fairbanks' writing vividly; the narrator was like a super-smart walking buddy who never once bored. I urge any of you who are interested in not only SA history but also current American affairs to give this book a go. (5/5).
The title refers to the generation that lives in the post-apartheid era in South Africa, e.g., 1994-present. The book is a personalized history - or better, a recounting - of this era through the eyes of several people. This is an extremely well-written and timely book and I cannot recommend enough. IMHO, this is a book that is relevant for Americans as it shines a mirror on our own situation so bright it may as well be a panel on the James Webb telescope.
I think "The Inheritors" serves as an effective rebuttal to a constant refrain we hear a lot from the Right: why should we further liberalize society when you look at a place like South Africa and when liberalized things have just gone to Hell? What Fairbanks ably demonstrates is that SA was never liberalized as much as you think and that troubles there are not all, or even close to all, the fault of elected ANC leaders.
The two main protagonists are Gen-Xers who grew up during apartheid: Dipuo, a resident of Soweto, anti-apartheid activist (sometimes violent), and mother to Malaika in her early 20's, from her first consensual sexual encounter; and Christou, a child of white farmers who was one of the last SA Special Forces trained for war in Angola. In both case, the end of apartheid turned their worlds upside down in ways neither could have imagined.
For Dipuo, the end of apartheid was supposed to bring new opportunities and a better life. Instead, she remains in the squalor of Soweto. She has the occasional success, getting jobs with an NGO and as an executive assistant in a private firm, only to lose it all. Around her, she sees whites who have given up very little in exchange for a new, non-pariah status. Her daughter Malaika is educated in a formerly white school but is still treated as an Other. Malaika eventually becomes an activist in her own right, and receives what is insincere plaudits from white audiences.
For Christou, who was expecting to thrive in the Border Wars as part of the lionized 3-2 Special Forces Battalion, the end of apartheid came suddenly, without warning, and with terrible consequences for Christou. Upon completion of his training, his transport to Angola is canceled at the last minute and his Battalion, the heroes of the white regime, is labeled an "embarrassment" by F W de Klerk and other leaders eager to see the end of apartheid. Christou becomes part of a detachment with pro-Western Angolans and kills a homeless man in the confusion. Christou is now considered a murderer and must defend himself. Eventually he does and becomes an attorney, but in the backlash of his and his peers becoming paraiahs, is taken with Afrikaner pride and becomes a dorm father at the Free State University in Bloemfontain for an all-white Afrikaner-themed dorm. His experiences seem to haunt him and also seem to be a microcosm for the white population in post-apartheid SA.
The point is that so many people are disappointed: Blacks who dreamed of at least sharing in the country's vast wealth do not seem better off and in many cases seem worse off (save for a few Black "Diamonds"; whites who only see potholes and have increased fear of crime.
The truth, as Fairbanks explains, is quite convoluted and SA is merely a small player in the world and subject to its whims. Apartheid ended not because of violent struggle but because white SA was being economically strangled by powerful foreigners who had had about enough of apartheid. Black and White elites who guided the country through transition agreed that sudden and violent redistribution of wealth would lead to a mass exodus of whites and their wealth and Black-led SA would die in its crib. By agreeing to democratic elections and remaining (largely) in the country, whites gave up very little practical power - although they no longer ran the gov't, they maintained and even increased their wealth and many who had the means cut themselves off further from greater society with high walls, etc.
Meanwhile, SA as a whole has had to struggle with providing basic needs such as electricity to more than twice as many people as it had to during apartheid. Fairbanks points out that the post-apartheid gov't has increased electricity output greatly but not enough for everyone to have what they need 24/7. This goes for road repairs and whatnot. From the White perspective, they notice things breaking down and just assume the gov't is incompetent and the apartheid gov't just worked better when in fact it just worked, period, for about 20% of the population. These things are worth considering when setting expectations of transitioning a country from minority rule to majority rule without excluding anyone.
I think the story of SA is of great interest to us in America because, well, it is our story. Apartheid after all was modeled on the Jim Crow South! It may have been far more formal and had the advantage of lack of restraint of the US Constitution, but the ideas were taken from us. I will link in the comments to W.F. Buckley, the HoF Conservative who was anti-Civil Rights and very pro-apartheid for that reason, interviewing SA President B.J. Vorster about apartheid and how the SA gov't treats "our blacks." I highly recommend watching the video because Buckley provides such clarity about the attitudes of the American Right c. 1970's with regard to the nightmare they imagined liberals posed, a nightmare we are told "Democrat mayors" are today promulgating in their cities night after night by Tucker Carlson and his ilk and is one main reason why a crook like Trump has any traction whatsoever.
Fairbanks makes only a passing reference to White SA'icans who emigrated after transition, and infers that many of those that did eventually returned. I'd like to add something personal here.
When I moved to Sydney in 1995, I had three friends from Rochester, my advisor and his family, and some new friends at Sydney Uni, but I needed a social life outside of Physics. So I made some friends in the Jewish Students Union. It turned out that the friends I made the most quickly and meaningfully were themselves recent immigrants from S. Africa (mainly Cape Town, but also JoBerg and Durban). These friends and their families treated me like one of their own and I never wanted for a Shabbos meal or Holiday invite and I even joined up at their shul in St Ives. I never really asked them why they emigrated, although as Jews in apartheid SA I imagine there was a degree of discomfort: their white skin got them privileges other minorities were denied, but their Jewishness made them remain Others. The threat of the end of apartheid must have added to their discomfort intensely enough to upend their families like that. My befriending these families fired up my interest in SA and I have read quite a bit, including "The Boer War" by Thomas Packenham which is the best history of anything I have ever read.
Anyway...Fairbanks moved to SA in 2009. I knew of her from her journalism at the New Republic in the mid-late-2000's, when it was still worth reading. In the book, she recounts her experiences as an American, an Other (Jewish), and a liberal and her perspectives add a lot of context to the story. The writing is sharp, erudite, personal, and always interesting. I listened to the audiobook version on my recent long walks and the narrator was rock-steady and conveyed Fairbanks' writing vividly; the narrator was like a super-smart walking buddy who never once bored. I urge any of you who are interested in not only SA history but also current American affairs to give this book a go. (5/5).
August 26, 2023
"The Inheritors" is a fascinating look at the history and culture of South Africa, from the 1970s through the present, with a particular focus on the post-apartheid period. The narrative is founded on the stories told by three South Africans about their lives, so it has the feeling of an oral history, buttressed with brief interludes of historical information and rounded out with the observations of the author. Dipuo is an anti-apartheid activist who grew up in a township and was known as "Stalin" for her toughness. Her daughter Malaika inherits the fruits of her mother's labor, growing up in the post-apartheid era and going to formerly white schools, but struggling to find her way in the messy, fraught, still-racist post-apartheid spaces. Christo is an Afrikaner who grew up wanting to be a soldier and was one of the last youth drafted before apartheid ended, but his military experience was not what he expected and he doesn't know who he is when it is over.
The main thing I can say about this book is that my mind boggled about how complicated the cultural situation in South Africa is. And how hopeless it all felt. Just layers upon layers of rage, guilt, fear, envy, self-recrimination, and doubt. Fairbanks posits that the Afrikaner minority feels a lot of guilt and shame for the fact that they were not more severely "punished" for apartheid. Some black South Africans feel guilt and shame for the many issues that the country has experienced under ANC rule. And so it goes on, a vortex of negative feelings and an apparent inability to bridge gaps in understanding. I finished the book feeling depressed, both for South Africa and for racial reconciliation in the United States too. Racism is so insidious, and its evils are so far-reaching. It hurts everyone, and it feels irreparable.
Also, I felt vaguely uncomfortable throughout the book knowing that Fairbanks is a white American woman. On the one hand, her outside perspective was probably necessary, and she did live in South Africa for many years, so she had built knowledge and relationships. On the other hand, she draws a lot of conclusions and attributes a lot of feelings to her interview subjects that I felt uncertain about. She does not have a light hand in the narrative and expresses a lot of thoughts and opinions. It would be interesting to see if I could find a similar book written by a South African and compare.
The main thing I can say about this book is that my mind boggled about how complicated the cultural situation in South Africa is. And how hopeless it all felt. Just layers upon layers of rage, guilt, fear, envy, self-recrimination, and doubt. Fairbanks posits that the Afrikaner minority feels a lot of guilt and shame for the fact that they were not more severely "punished" for apartheid. Some black South Africans feel guilt and shame for the many issues that the country has experienced under ANC rule. And so it goes on, a vortex of negative feelings and an apparent inability to bridge gaps in understanding. I finished the book feeling depressed, both for South Africa and for racial reconciliation in the United States too. Racism is so insidious, and its evils are so far-reaching. It hurts everyone, and it feels irreparable.
Also, I felt vaguely uncomfortable throughout the book knowing that Fairbanks is a white American woman. On the one hand, her outside perspective was probably necessary, and she did live in South Africa for many years, so she had built knowledge and relationships. On the other hand, she draws a lot of conclusions and attributes a lot of feelings to her interview subjects that I felt uncertain about. She does not have a light hand in the narrative and expresses a lot of thoughts and opinions. It would be interesting to see if I could find a similar book written by a South African and compare.
August 27, 2024
Eve Fairbanks gives a realistic, insightful and sympathetic portrait of South Africa by intimately describing 4 South Africans, who represent many South Africans who are still dealing with the traumatic after-effects of state-sanctioned apartheid of the 1980s and the informal apartheid ever since. The book shows how these effects are still living inside each character today 24 years after apartheid's formal disintegration. Each one has inherited a different set of issues to deal with from the horrible and enduring institution of apartheid.
The beauty of Fairbanks' book is that she presents a micro examination of the less discernible effects of apartheid. She has earned the trust of 4 South Africans (Dipuo, Malaika, Christo and Elliot), who open up to her revealing their states of mind, their deep feelings, their frank opinions and the intimate details of their lives during mostly the post- apartheid years but also, to a lesser extent, the years leading up to apartheid's formal demise. As a result the readers get to see an accurate picture of the underlying conditions of ordinary South Africans, that you never see in the media.
Many people know about the important role that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) played in the transition to the new ANC government, but no one knows about the huge number of people who were so wounded by apartheid's devastating effects that they could not bear to testify to the TRC. Fairbanks tells the stories of these wounded South Africans, mostly black but also white, who are in need of reconciliation and redemption still today but have never had a chance to tell their stories and bare their souls until they opened up to Eve Fairbanks (and to us the readers) giving us a rare glimpse into the souls of South Africans today. This is excellent and difficult reporting on the part of the author.
Most people (me included) think the pain and suffering of apartheid ended 28 years ago when Nelson Mandela was elected as South Africa's first democratically-elected president in 1994. What people do not realize is that there has never been a true reckoning of apartheid's horrible effects on South Africa's Black population. White South Africans have never had to formally acknowledge and apologize for what they did. They have pretty much gotten away with 100's of years of social injustice and terror. In post-apartheid Africa, they are thriving economically as never before. The young Malaika points out that "a fuller public conversation about [South Africa's] past has to happen- both for South Africa to face the unfinished business of rooting out racism and to loosen the psychological hold of the past on its children." (p.282)
When the new ANC South African government took power in 1994, the outgoing whites wanted everybody to forget about the past and to emphasize the future. The ANC agreed to this forgetting. They emphasized the creation of a new Rainbow Nation to make everybody feel good about South Africa's future. This Rainbow Nation idea was an illusion, like Never-Never land, that took the place of the hard work of creating job and education opportunities for blacks to narrow the income gap between Blacks and Whites. The Rainbow Nation (and freedom) is meaningless when Black unemployment is hovering at 35% (or higher) today.
We see through Fairbanks' interview with Elliot (just one chapter) that Mandela had a plan for transferring 30% of the white-owned farmland to black families, but this plan was poorly executed. Michael Buys, the Black South African in charge of "land reform," states that the Black South Africans to whom he transferred white-abandoned farmland had no training or economic support to run a big sophisticated farm. This land-transfer program was just another part of the Never-Never Land thinking and planning of the ANC government.
Even Elliot, who had the education, some finances and the determination to run a big farm couldn't succeed on the farm he received. Fairbanks writes, "When the land reform official left him at the gate [of his farm] ... he saw it was a ruin...The previous owner left a $6,000 outstanding electricity bill and the electric utility company had cut the power supplying the farm's water pumps and lights...." (p. 334). The author points out the messy, unknown details of Mandela's well-known land transfer program that explain why this land-transfer program was doomed to failure.
Most people in South Africa, Black and White, want to place the blame for these farm failures on the incompetence and laziness of Black farmers. Even Elliot blames his blackness on his farm's failure. He says, "It's because I'm not white. Truly speaking. I don't lie to you" (p. 340). Eve Fairbanks points out to him (us) all the inherent problems with the farm and the economic reasons why Elliot's conclusion is totally false. Elliot is a victim of an internalized black inferiority complex, one of the most insidious and pervasive effects of apartheid. The other two black characters of the book, Dipuo and Malaika, also wrestle with the same psychological problem.
The book "The Inheritors" serves as a small version of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It gives an opportunity for a white South African (Christo) to fully acknowledge what happened to him in his past and for 3 black South Africans (Dipuo, Malaika and Elliot) to more fully acknowledge their damage and pain from apartheid. The author has alerted the readers that something is amiss in South Africa today. She writes, "There is a sense of a bill unpaid [a true reckoning of the Afrikaner role in apartheid] hanging over South Africa, a ledger off balance... the South African society is overdrawn" (p. 358). This overdue bill must be paid before South Africa can move forward and reach its economic and social potential in the world today for all Blacks and Whites.
The beauty of Fairbanks' book is that she presents a micro examination of the less discernible effects of apartheid. She has earned the trust of 4 South Africans (Dipuo, Malaika, Christo and Elliot), who open up to her revealing their states of mind, their deep feelings, their frank opinions and the intimate details of their lives during mostly the post- apartheid years but also, to a lesser extent, the years leading up to apartheid's formal demise. As a result the readers get to see an accurate picture of the underlying conditions of ordinary South Africans, that you never see in the media.
Many people know about the important role that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) played in the transition to the new ANC government, but no one knows about the huge number of people who were so wounded by apartheid's devastating effects that they could not bear to testify to the TRC. Fairbanks tells the stories of these wounded South Africans, mostly black but also white, who are in need of reconciliation and redemption still today but have never had a chance to tell their stories and bare their souls until they opened up to Eve Fairbanks (and to us the readers) giving us a rare glimpse into the souls of South Africans today. This is excellent and difficult reporting on the part of the author.
Most people (me included) think the pain and suffering of apartheid ended 28 years ago when Nelson Mandela was elected as South Africa's first democratically-elected president in 1994. What people do not realize is that there has never been a true reckoning of apartheid's horrible effects on South Africa's Black population. White South Africans have never had to formally acknowledge and apologize for what they did. They have pretty much gotten away with 100's of years of social injustice and terror. In post-apartheid Africa, they are thriving economically as never before. The young Malaika points out that "a fuller public conversation about [South Africa's] past has to happen- both for South Africa to face the unfinished business of rooting out racism and to loosen the psychological hold of the past on its children." (p.282)
When the new ANC South African government took power in 1994, the outgoing whites wanted everybody to forget about the past and to emphasize the future. The ANC agreed to this forgetting. They emphasized the creation of a new Rainbow Nation to make everybody feel good about South Africa's future. This Rainbow Nation idea was an illusion, like Never-Never land, that took the place of the hard work of creating job and education opportunities for blacks to narrow the income gap between Blacks and Whites. The Rainbow Nation (and freedom) is meaningless when Black unemployment is hovering at 35% (or higher) today.
We see through Fairbanks' interview with Elliot (just one chapter) that Mandela had a plan for transferring 30% of the white-owned farmland to black families, but this plan was poorly executed. Michael Buys, the Black South African in charge of "land reform," states that the Black South Africans to whom he transferred white-abandoned farmland had no training or economic support to run a big sophisticated farm. This land-transfer program was just another part of the Never-Never Land thinking and planning of the ANC government.
Even Elliot, who had the education, some finances and the determination to run a big farm couldn't succeed on the farm he received. Fairbanks writes, "When the land reform official left him at the gate [of his farm] ... he saw it was a ruin...The previous owner left a $6,000 outstanding electricity bill and the electric utility company had cut the power supplying the farm's water pumps and lights...." (p. 334). The author points out the messy, unknown details of Mandela's well-known land transfer program that explain why this land-transfer program was doomed to failure.
Most people in South Africa, Black and White, want to place the blame for these farm failures on the incompetence and laziness of Black farmers. Even Elliot blames his blackness on his farm's failure. He says, "It's because I'm not white. Truly speaking. I don't lie to you" (p. 340). Eve Fairbanks points out to him (us) all the inherent problems with the farm and the economic reasons why Elliot's conclusion is totally false. Elliot is a victim of an internalized black inferiority complex, one of the most insidious and pervasive effects of apartheid. The other two black characters of the book, Dipuo and Malaika, also wrestle with the same psychological problem.
The book "The Inheritors" serves as a small version of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It gives an opportunity for a white South African (Christo) to fully acknowledge what happened to him in his past and for 3 black South Africans (Dipuo, Malaika and Elliot) to more fully acknowledge their damage and pain from apartheid. The author has alerted the readers that something is amiss in South Africa today. She writes, "There is a sense of a bill unpaid [a true reckoning of the Afrikaner role in apartheid] hanging over South Africa, a ledger off balance... the South African society is overdrawn" (p. 358). This overdue bill must be paid before South Africa can move forward and reach its economic and social potential in the world today for all Blacks and Whites.
June 22, 2025
Eve Fairbanks’ The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning offers a profound exploration of post-apartheid South Africa through the intertwined lives of three individuals: Dipuo, her daughter Malaika, and Christo. Spanning five decades, the narrative delves into the personal and societal transformations that accompanied the nation’s shift from institutionalized racial segregation to a fledgling democracy.
(Warning major plot points ahead)
Major Characters and Their Journeys
1. Dipuo: An anti-apartheid activist from Johannesburg’s Soweto township, Dipuo dedicated her youth to challenging the oppressive apartheid regime. Her story reflects the resilience and sacrifices of those who fought for liberation, as well as the complexities of adjusting to a new societal structure where long-held dreams confront harsh realities.
2. Malaika: Born as apartheid was ending, Malaika represents the “born-free” generation. Her narrative examines the expectations placed upon those who grew up in a democratic South Africa and the dissonance between the promised opportunities and the persistent socio-economic challenges.
3. Christo: One of the last white South Africans conscripted to defend the apartheid system, Christo’s journey portrays the internal conflict and identity crisis faced by those who once upheld a now-discredited ideology. His transformation offers insight into the struggles of reconciling a privileged past with a more equitable present.
Relevance in 2025
As of 2025, The Inheritors remains a vital text for understanding the enduring impacts of systemic racism and the challenges inherent in societal transformation. The book’s exploration of personal narratives amidst national upheaval offers valuable lessons for countries grappling with their own histories of inequality.
Also, for those that are ignorant of what has occurred in South Africa after Apartheid ended, this book provides perspectives from three major perspectives that represent South Africans today. As an American, the book was informative, vulnerable, and open ended about the future. I don’t get the sense there is doom or despair ahead, instead, like with any new country – a complicated and nuanced journey ahead.
(Warning major plot points ahead)
Major Characters and Their Journeys
1. Dipuo: An anti-apartheid activist from Johannesburg’s Soweto township, Dipuo dedicated her youth to challenging the oppressive apartheid regime. Her story reflects the resilience and sacrifices of those who fought for liberation, as well as the complexities of adjusting to a new societal structure where long-held dreams confront harsh realities.
2. Malaika: Born as apartheid was ending, Malaika represents the “born-free” generation. Her narrative examines the expectations placed upon those who grew up in a democratic South Africa and the dissonance between the promised opportunities and the persistent socio-economic challenges.
3. Christo: One of the last white South Africans conscripted to defend the apartheid system, Christo’s journey portrays the internal conflict and identity crisis faced by those who once upheld a now-discredited ideology. His transformation offers insight into the struggles of reconciling a privileged past with a more equitable present.
Relevance in 2025
As of 2025, The Inheritors remains a vital text for understanding the enduring impacts of systemic racism and the challenges inherent in societal transformation. The book’s exploration of personal narratives amidst national upheaval offers valuable lessons for countries grappling with their own histories of inequality.
Also, for those that are ignorant of what has occurred in South Africa after Apartheid ended, this book provides perspectives from three major perspectives that represent South Africans today. As an American, the book was informative, vulnerable, and open ended about the future. I don’t get the sense there is doom or despair ahead, instead, like with any new country – a complicated and nuanced journey ahead.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 6, 2022
For a few years in the mid-1970s, I lived in Kinshasa, Zaire; a former colony abused by the Belgians for decades that had become a cold-war pawn mired in crippling corruption and poverty. Zaire's "President"looted billions while the country went without nearly everything. At the time, South Africa, at least in my mind, was a near mythical place. An African country with roads, hospitals, supermarkets, and potable water. True, apartheid was an oppressive and horrible system, but in my young mind I questioned whether the injustices of apartheid were any worse than the misery meted out by dictators like Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko.
In the early 1980s, as a college student, I visited South Africa for a few weeks, seeing firsthand the first-world infrastructure and development that so many who live in the developed world take for granted. I also observed the stark contrast between the comforts of white life built on hoarded economic opportunity and cheap labor, and the poverty, injustice, and humiliation endured by blacks.
Fast forward to the early 1990s and the democratic election of Nelson Mandela. South Africa attempted one of the most significant economic and sociological transitions in human history; the overnight sharing of political and economic power by an in-group with an out-group. South Africa was attempting to do something in a few years that we in the United States have yet to do after more than 250 years.
"The Inheritors," told largely through the experiences of a few people is a fascinating investigation of the changes in perspective, opportunity, power, and outcomes wrought by this dramatic transition.
In the early 1980s, as a college student, I visited South Africa for a few weeks, seeing firsthand the first-world infrastructure and development that so many who live in the developed world take for granted. I also observed the stark contrast between the comforts of white life built on hoarded economic opportunity and cheap labor, and the poverty, injustice, and humiliation endured by blacks.
Fast forward to the early 1990s and the democratic election of Nelson Mandela. South Africa attempted one of the most significant economic and sociological transitions in human history; the overnight sharing of political and economic power by an in-group with an out-group. South Africa was attempting to do something in a few years that we in the United States have yet to do after more than 250 years.
"The Inheritors," told largely through the experiences of a few people is a fascinating investigation of the changes in perspective, opportunity, power, and outcomes wrought by this dramatic transition.
February 4, 2024
"Culture war" is frequently used to describe the current U.S. political climate. Racial distrust and competition are among its features. Many of our societal tensions can be traced to slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement.
Apartheid in South Africa, its subsequent end and the massive changes it wrought, was no less polarizing. People such as myself do not have any contact with South Africans. Our understanding of its society and history comes from books, as our media gives it little attention. When it does, the focus is on political events that do not convey a sense of how it feels to be South African.
This book calls itself an "intimate portrait". It certainly is. Fairbanks delves deeply into the lives of a a few people with powerful group identities who might be considered exemplars of blacks and Afrikaners. Each experienced confusion, anger, frustration, loss, disappointment, and dislocation in the aftermath of Apartheid.
What makes this books remarkable is that Fairbanks goes deep into the psychology of each person she studies. She reveals surprising emotional states that evolve as South Africa changes. What each person thought during Apartheid and what they think as events unfold makes compelling reading.
It also informs what is happening in our own country.
Superb book
Apartheid in South Africa, its subsequent end and the massive changes it wrought, was no less polarizing. People such as myself do not have any contact with South Africans. Our understanding of its society and history comes from books, as our media gives it little attention. When it does, the focus is on political events that do not convey a sense of how it feels to be South African.
This book calls itself an "intimate portrait". It certainly is. Fairbanks delves deeply into the lives of a a few people with powerful group identities who might be considered exemplars of blacks and Afrikaners. Each experienced confusion, anger, frustration, loss, disappointment, and dislocation in the aftermath of Apartheid.
What makes this books remarkable is that Fairbanks goes deep into the psychology of each person she studies. She reveals surprising emotional states that evolve as South Africa changes. What each person thought during Apartheid and what they think as events unfold makes compelling reading.
It also informs what is happening in our own country.
Superb book
September 2, 2022
This marvelous book (my reading group loved it) takes us on a journey across the post Apartheid landscape of South Africa with three main protagonists as companions but many other characters along the way. These people live on the other side of the chasm created by the political earthquake that ended white rule and the book shows with deep psychological understanding how they look back with mixed feelings. It is in part a study of what happens after the crossing , when the new reality must still co exist with the old dream, because they are close in time. The disorientation many feel in this new world is vividly described.
The book is so vibrant and earthy because it gives the things of daily life the importance they deserve, like an anthropologist would. Like Tom Wolfe did. Clothes, social status, household decor, the way soap operas form expectations of love, the way children grow and separate from parents. It always surprises with these details whose significance we suddenly see.
How is it relevant to our situation? The sympathetic and forgiving way the book looks at people on both sides of the apartheid divide can be a guide to us , an invitation to see the full humanity of our opponents . Wouldn’t it be a better world if we could?
The book is so vibrant and earthy because it gives the things of daily life the importance they deserve, like an anthropologist would. Like Tom Wolfe did. Clothes, social status, household decor, the way soap operas form expectations of love, the way children grow and separate from parents. It always surprises with these details whose significance we suddenly see.
How is it relevant to our situation? The sympathetic and forgiving way the book looks at people on both sides of the apartheid divide can be a guide to us , an invitation to see the full humanity of our opponents . Wouldn’t it be a better world if we could?
October 11, 2022
I fluctuated between 4 and 5 stars. I ended up giving this book five stars because of the author’s insight and refusal to take opinions at face value. Other reviews criticize some of these interpretations, but to me this made the book one of the most thought provoking I’ve ever read. You don’t need to agree with her assumptions, just consider them.
In the late 70’s I played soccer with a South African brother and sister attending University in Minnesota. My first Aparthied shock was that they being of Indian decent were considered “colored”. The next one was that Apartheid wasn’t a centuries old system, but rather instituted just as other African counties were throwing off colonial rule.
When I heard Bishop Tutu on one his US visits I thought South Africa was on a great path forward and didn’t think
much about it again.
This book was a shock in a lot of ways. SA has the highest wealth disparity in the world so the idea that SA has one of the best constitutions loses a lot of its shine.
Most shocking though are the attitudes of South Africans themselves.
Thank you for your intelligent and insightful book.
In the late 70’s I played soccer with a South African brother and sister attending University in Minnesota. My first Aparthied shock was that they being of Indian decent were considered “colored”. The next one was that Apartheid wasn’t a centuries old system, but rather instituted just as other African counties were throwing off colonial rule.
When I heard Bishop Tutu on one his US visits I thought South Africa was on a great path forward and didn’t think
much about it again.
This book was a shock in a lot of ways. SA has the highest wealth disparity in the world so the idea that SA has one of the best constitutions loses a lot of its shine.
Most shocking though are the attitudes of South Africans themselves.
Thank you for your intelligent and insightful book.
September 3, 2023
We read this before our trip to South Africa, which deepened our experience and helped us understand the country's history before visits to historical sites like Robben Island. The book mainly traces three characters' journeys as apartheid ends, and is remarkably empathetic toward all three perspectives, including the least sympathetic one. Their stories form the narrative backbone, but the book is also filled with anecdotes and characters from the author's years of living in South Africa. There are some moments of armchair psychology, where I find the author to be possibly over-interpreting someone's behavior.
But overall she is determined to elucidate the full spectrum of personal responses to the end of apartheid, including some of the less savory thoughts that must have been a feat to extract. The result is a nuanced and multifaceted psychological portrait of a country grappling with rapid change and decades of racist trauma.
But overall she is determined to elucidate the full spectrum of personal responses to the end of apartheid, including some of the less savory thoughts that must have been a feat to extract. The result is a nuanced and multifaceted psychological portrait of a country grappling with rapid change and decades of racist trauma.
July 19, 2022
I read Eve Fairbanks' "The Inheritors" in one sitting- it was impossible to put down! The book follows the lives of three individuals in post-apartheid South Africa. Fairbanks draws out their stories with nuance, thoughtfulness and care, as both witness to and poet of their lives. I was drawn in by the remarkable prose (there are many phrases in this book that have stuck with me!) but it's the incredible depth of storytelling that made this book a profound read. As someone who spent time living in South Africa, this is a story about the political re-shaping of a complex and beautiful country. It's a critical story to tell in this moment of American (and world) history. Fairbanks does a terrific job of telling it. I'm buying copies for all my friends!!
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