David's Story

By Zoë Wicomb

Book Overview

A powerful post-apartheid novel and winner of South Africa's M-Net Literary Award, hailed by J.M. Coetzee as "a tremendous achievement."

South Africa, 1991: Nelson Mandela is freed from prison, the African National Congress is now legal, and a new day dawns in Cape Town. David Dirkse, part of the underground world of activists, spies, and saboteurs in the liberation movement, suddenly finds himself above ground. With "time to think" after the unbanning of the movement, David searches his family tree, tracing his bloodline to the mixed-race "Coloured" people of South Africa and their antecedents among the indigenous people and early colonial settlers.

But as David studies his roots, he soon learns that he's on a hit list. Now caught in a web of surveillance and betrayal, he's forced to rethink his role in the struggle for "nonracial democracy," the loyalty of his "comrades," and his own conceptions of freedom.

Mesmerizing and multilayered, Wicomb's award-winning novel delivers a moving examination of the nature of political vision, memory, and truth.

"A delicate, powerful novel, guided by the paradoxes of witnessing the certainties of national liberation and the uncertainties of ground-level hybrid identity, the mysteries of sexual exchange, the austerity of political fiction. Wicomb's book belongs on a shelf with books by Maryse Cond and Yvette Christians ." --Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, author of A Critique of Postcolonial Reason

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558613986
• ISBN13: 9781558613980
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Feminist Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

The cost of freedom

Wicomb's David's Story is the most brilliant piece of fiction to come out of South Africa since Gordimer's Burger's Daughter. The cultural and political complexities require a little work for outsiders, but it is well worth the necessary effort. The dominance of the ANC politically does not confine Wicomb in any way. She explores the most controversial aspects of the liberation movement (revolutionary violence, double agents, sexual exploitation) and calls into question much more than the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did in years of investigation. A must read for anyone who wants to understand South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy.

Strands of Disconnection

Wicomb's ambitious foray into the overwhelming complexities inherent to a postcolonial South Africa demonstrates the subtleties that enable the existence of muted voices; or subaltern as the theorist Spivak might call them (whose views align with this book mostly, and would serve as a great supplemental read!). By weaving two parallel stories of history, gender, and race Wicomb successfully communicates the paradox of individual isolation and heritage. I would highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in the intersection of gender and postcolonial studies. The male protagonist which the title refers to serves as an excellent example of the steps taken in order to comprehend one's own role in obscuring the realities of gender oppression; identification of this type of complicity is crushing and on an emotional level is successfully conveyed. David's relationship with a female guerilla activist Dulcie amidst the liberation movement of the early 90's is a powerful reminder of the forces that are symbiotically attached to the politics of the time, but which have the potential to transcend them in gravity. A wonderfully nuanced and developed read, highly recommended!