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Achmat Dangor

Bitter Fruit Paperback – January 1, 2001

by Achmat Dangor (Author)

3.6 69 ratings

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This novel provides insight into the intricacies of a changing South Africa at the end of the 1990s. Silas Ali, a former political activist, now a middle-aged civil servant working on the final Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, is shopping in the Killarney Mall in Johannesburg when he bumps into a ghost from his past-Lieutenant François du Boise, a retired security policeman. This chance encounter brings back a memory that Silas and his wife Lydia have been avoiding for 20 years. The past erupts into the present, cracking off the shell of normalcy that encloses their family life. This story of Silas, Lydia, and their son Mikey, a university student with a curious mind and a calculating will, provides an understanding of the politics of race, the brittle surface of urban life in postapartheid South Africa, and the deeper, more disturbing historical currents that run beneath it.

Print length

254 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Macmillan Co of Australia
Publication date

January 1, 2001
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0795700970
ISBN-13

978-0795700972
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Achmat Dangor is a former head of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and the author of Waiting for Leila, The Z Town Trilogy, and Kafka's Curse, winner of the 1998 Herman Charles Bosman Award. He lives in New York City.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan Co of Australia; First Edition (January 1, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 254 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0795700970
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0795700972
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches

Customer Reviews:
3.6 69 ratings

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3.6 out of 5

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Genevieve

One of the best books of post-Apartheid South Africa

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 13, 2010

Verified Purchase

A couple years ago Desmond Tutu landed in hot water for saying that South Africans had lost their innate sense of right and wrong. While the level of violence that has become normal in the country may have many roots, Dangor explores how Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission helped shape (or misshape) South African mores. More adeptly than any other book I've read of the post-Apartheid era, Dangor explores the tension that rises from the new social contract. How can one determine right from wrong when murderers and rapists are forgiven so long as they claim political motive?

The novel is set in the twilight of Mandela's administration as the task of transition is over and the magnitude of the problems of crime, violence against women, corruption and AIDS are becoming clear. The novel examines the impact of a rape through view of the woman, her husband and her son. The writing is superb. Unlike Disgrace, you won't find cardboard cutouts shuffling around a desolate landscape. Bitter Fruit may be a sharp critique of South Africa but it is also hopeful. The characters in this novel may not understand how to make sense of their present but their actions, good and bad, break the culture of denial and loosen the shackles of the past.

3 people found this helpful

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Parrott

A Strong Story That Takes Time to Digest

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 11, 2008

Verified Purchase

Achmat Dangor has framed a small history of South Africa around Silas Ali, his fractious family and a cohort of erstwhile comrades in the liberation movement. In the opening pages, we meet Silas' nemesis, Francois du Boise and do not "see' him again until near the closing. Yet throughout the story, it is Du Boise's terrorist shadow that stalks Silas, his wife Lydia and by extension their son, Michael. The characters are developed fully, their dialogue is realistic and their behaviors are believable. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission as the backdrop, is a useful metaphor for the characters' approaches to the many themes. On the other hand, the book is hindered by Dangor's tackling too many themes - and trying to connect them. This bogged down the story's movement. The writing is smart, poetic, and the turn of phrase is often surprisingly brilliant. Given a stronger, more satisfying ending, I would have rated this book four stars.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

One Star

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 1, 2016

Verified Purchase

Terrible with gratuitous sexual and violent imagery.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

A Novel of Post-Apartheid South Africa

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 22, 2010

At a climactic moment of Achmat Dangor's novel, "Bitter Fruit" (2004), a secondary character relates a traumatic story which works to the following conclusion: "There are certain things people do not forget, or forgive. Rape is one of them. In ancient times, conquerors destroyed the will of those whom they conquered by impregnating the women. It is an ancient form of genocide." (p. 204)

In the novel, a rape which can neither be forgotten nor forgiven plays a central role. The violation of rape is important in itself, and it also serves as the defining metaphor for Dangor's picture of apartheid in South Africa and its consequence. The novel is set in the late 20th Century as South Africa struggles to emerge from its apartheid past. It is set against the background of the amnesty policy of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in which the evils of the past would be memorialized and acknowledged but without bloodshed. The hope was for the country to move on while minimizing vengeance, vendettas, or grudges.

The primary characters are Silas Ali, a former activist and attorney for the TRC, his wife Lydia, and their late adolescent son Mikey who mid-way through the novel begins calling himself Michael. Silas and Lydia are both of mixed racial background but are otherwise quite different from each other. About 20 years before the story begins Lydia had been raped by a white policeman, Du Boise, in the presence of Silas who was unable to prevent the outrage. Then, 20 years later Silas runs into the aged Du Boise at a supermarket and a confrontation almost ensues. During the intervening 20 years, the couple had rarely discussed the incident which festered between them. The marriage was unhappy, sexually and otherwise. When Silas tells Lydia of his meeting with DuBois, something snaps inside both husband and wife. Lydia cuts her feet on broken glass, "dancing on glass" and is hospitalized. While visiting her, Silas has a stroke and is also hospitalized.

While his parents are hospitalized, Mikey, a brooding and introspective lad with an interest in literature finds his mother's diary and reads it. He has reason to think that he is the child of Du Boise's rape of his mother.

Besides the three primary characters, the novel offers glimpses of their family and colleagues. The latter part of the book includes a portrayal of the portion of South Africa's Islamic community which either sponsors or condones terrorism. Besides the pivotal rape incident, the book includes many scenes of other forms of sexuality, including child abuse, incest, bisexual and polyamorous relationships, closeted gay sexuality and more. Most of the sexual activity is of forms that are offensive as is most, but not all, of the sexual conduct itself.

The book was Booker Prize finalist. It offers a portrayal of the difficulties South Africa faces in moving forward and beyond its tarnished past. For the most part, I did not find "Bitter Fruit" convincing as a novel. Here are some of my reasons. Many of the individual scenes as well as the dialogue are sharp and crisp. But they contrast with the story line which drags. Other than the three primary characters, most of the other people in the book receive shadowy portrayals which distract from the story. In minute detail, the book describes the vileness and the long-term effects of rape and his analogy between rape and apartheid has some effect. The author is critical of the Truth and Reconciliation policy and he suggests that neither rape nor apartheid should be readily put aside without some attempt at what appears to be vengeance. The novel did not move me to share such a conclusion. Furthermore, the book's focus on the vile and debasing forms of human sexual practices, in addition to the rape on which the story turns, did not seem to me to add a great deal to the novel.

The novel's focus on the Ali family and on the various sexual issues of the family members and other characters also distracted from considering the book as a story of the difficulties of an emergent South Africa. The book was more the story of a sharply dysfunctional family. And the focus of the book wanders unconvincingly from Silas, to Michael, to Lydia. Lydia ultimately works to some degree of freedom from the rape and from her marriage in a brief sexual encounter with a young man after which she leaves Silas. The story line seems to shift from a metaphor about South Africa to a story of a woman in search of a difficult personal and sexual freedom. This is an inadequate denouement for the book. The story of apartheid and its aftermath encompasses people of many and diverse backgrounds as well as people of both genders. Overall, this novel does not succeed.

Robin Friedman

5 people found this helpful

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Michelle Wallace

Multi-layered. Bitter. Intense.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 25, 2019

A really bitter and convoluted reality, as we witness the interpersonal struggle, as well as the question of identity, of a family who is slowly and irrevocably rotting away... until the bitter end. There is no resolution.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 26, 2013

It gives a good understanding of SA during the times of the CT. The book is well written but long winded in parts.

One person found this helpful

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wbjonesjr1

Teen angst, dad angst, mom angst, my angst

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 11, 2010

Achmat Dangor is undeniably a talented writer and "Bitter Fruit" an undeniably powerful novel. But it was not for me. The book pours angst at every page and from every character. It seems like every one of the central characters and their near relatives either have incestuous sex with a partner of the same or a very different age or forcible sex or both. We sort of get an "insight" into the transition out of Apartheid and to top it off a cameo appearance by Mandela himself, but it doesnt really draw interest as it is told in the context of angst angst angst. Mikey`s (then Michael, I suppose for some abstruse symbolic purpose) story is the most bizarre and emblematic of the novel: he gets involved with 3 older women (obviously including a very near relative); 2 women of the same age (yes, including one relative) and then in a fit of pique does some really extreme acts (spoiler if revealed) that seem very inconsistent with his being widely regarded as "brilliant".

To conclude, "Bitter Fruit" is one of those novels that somehow get critical accolades and Booker Prize nominations but that, for me, are impossible to enjoy. Hopefully Dangor`s future work will have a bit less angst and density, a little more plot, and at least one sympathetic and remotely normal character.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Bookworm

Thought provoking

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 2, 2023

Verified Purchase

For those who have little knowledge of South Africa's brutal history under the Ditch and English this novel is an education in the far reaching and tragic consequences of apartheid

sue harries

Bitter fruit

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

Avery intriguing ok and very authenti c in its glimpses oftownship culture and ice post Mzdela,s return from prison. All the characters are well drawn and ring true and many are damaged and lost in the new apartheid world
I am giving it to my 30 year old grandson who has need to South Africa but knows nothing if the unerlying giult and trauma

One person found this helpful

Andrea Van Peteghem

sad, really bitter

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 30, 2016

Verified Purchase

Very dark book, sad, really bitter! intelligent, sensitive, I learned a lot about South Africa reading this book!

Wendy Borrill

A gift

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 6, 2014

Verified Purchase

I gave this to my sister on her birthday. It was sent direct and arrived on time. I had read it and knew it was a book she would appreciate. The chances are that I will read it again.

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Bitter Fruit Paperback – January 1, 2001

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