Review by Neo Mvubu
As a very young South African lady, Mine Boy touches the heart in such a way that it moves every inch of your body. This book – published over fifty years ago - has touched a part of me that I didn’t know existed. It explores the life of Xuma, a man born in the rural areas to seek wealth in the big city Johannesburg.
We walk with Xuma in his love life, in his path to find success as a miner and we realise the inequalities that the apartheid government imposed on him. As the story progresses we find him falling in love with Eliza, a woman who dreams of living the life of a white man, she loves him too but is pulled away by the luxuries, the material and the life that the white man lives. She then realises that that she cannot live with Xuma, at the same time, Xuma cannot satisfy her material needs.
We also experience the life of a miner and the conditions these people had to endure, the illnesses and the hunger and we see an old man who is on the verge of death but doesn’t disclose his disease, just to see his family pay off the debt!
The book is so visual that it pulls you into the lives of these people, you can see the people dancing in the street, drinking alcohol and you can see them blissful in their lives, even for that brief moment. The imagery is powerful, Peter Abrahams is able to create a picture that remains in your mind for years, and this is what one calls an unforgettable read.
As a young person in South Africa, we tend to take for granted the strides our people had to go through to ensure a great future for us and we don’t really understand what was going during the apartheid era, for me, it feels like it never happened, it’s like people never fought but when you read this book, you truly become part of your history. You tap into the daily lives of these people and experience every single emotion, the happiness, the heartache, the love and the music. You can feel yourself being part of the history and it just takes you back.
We see a man called Johannes in the book, this man was introduced into the life of alcoholism and never had anyone seen him sober. They say in the book, that white people introduced alcohol and then tried to take it away from black people, they introduced something that would take away the dignity of a black man and for Johannes, and it took away his essence. It took away the thing that made him who he was.
We also see a black doctor experiencing the same amount of racism and he doesn’t understand why he is treated like this. He is a doctor, tried to get the very education that would make him equal to a white man but it doesn’t and we get the impression that whatever you do, the whites would never see blacks as their equal.
Mine Boy was written many decades ago but we still see the racism taking place today, and this makes us realise that achieving a non-sexist, non-discriminatory democracy will take many more years; it is a journey rather than a destination.
Peter Abrahams addresses the plight of the black man in apartheid South Africa and makes us re-live the history in a visual way. This book is for people who appreciate black history, people who are eager to learn about themselves and where they come from.
