PRAISE FOR RIAN MALANS MY TRAITORS HEART
A scorching expos... Malan has taken truth-telling to the most grueling degree imaginable. San Francisco Chronicle
This book grabs you by the throat and will not let go. It is mesmerizing. It will profoundly alter whatever you have felt about South Africaand mankind.Peter Maas
One of the most exhilarating books to come along in years.... Malans overview is so thorough and compelling that you can hardly bear the pain of it. But his writing is so awesome you wish it would never end. Details
An unimaginably good book... I cannot recommend this book too highly to all who wish to think of themselves as conscious, and who are still willing to bear the burden of conscience. My Traitors Heart is a book that will change your mind.Jim Harrison
The raw, heartbreaking cry that sounds from My Traitors Heart... gives the routine violence of apartheid an unbearable reality. Vanity Fair
This is a great swirling devil of a book and it is equal in every way to its vast subjectthe black and white country of the heart.Don DeLillo
A beautifully written book... Malan makes us better understand what has happened and what yet needs to be done. Houston Chronicle
A book that speaks with eloquence... It condemns with uncompromising moral persistence the racism underpinning white South African society, but never resorts to simple stereotyping, nave liberal cant, or easy outs. It is an honest book by an honest man. Chicago Sun-Times
Passionate, informed, and compelling.Richard Price
Malan is bent on uncovering another level altogether of South African life, and he does so beautifully.... He sharply expands our understanding of his strange, strange countrys complexities.
William Finnegan, The New York Times
Eloquent, sometimes almost shrill, but never glib... Malan loves his country even as he mourns its history, loves his family even as he deplores the society they helped create. Newsweek
MY Traitors Heart is a book with many things to teach us.... A seeker of the truth, [Malan] takes us along in this excellent book as he discovers the complexities of his troubled land. USA Today
A parable of terror and beauty... the stuff of tragedy, acted out in blood.
James Dickey
An honest and complicated contribution to a centuries-old discourse on colonialism. The Village Voice
Malan proves himself a masterful writer, perhaps because he is so obviously honest and writing from the heart. The Oregonian
One of the most coldly realistic yet compassionate accounts of contemporary South Africa.... Malans colloquial tone gives this heartfelt confession of his fears, contradictions, hopes, and love a compelling immediacy.
Kirkus Reviews
Malan is singularly well placed to tell the tale of how his country closed its eyes to the march of history. New York
This is not just another book about South Africa. It is the corrosive, self-doubting, anguished, courageously brash testimony of a young Afrikaner appalled by the intellectual and emotional dishonesty involved in taking on the stance of liberal or radical white freedom fighter.
The Christian Science Monitor
Malans book raises hard questions about race that most white leftists both in and outside of South Africa have preferred not to face. The Nation
Although Mr. Malans true-life tales are as ironic and uncanny as Isak Dinesens stories, his voice ultimately offers no distractions and almost no consolation, and this book becomes an act of human patriotism in the face of evil choices. The New Yorker
My Traitors Heart is the thoughtful and thought-provoking account of a man who has come to terms with his country. It is not merely a parable of terror; it is a candle that has been lit to light the obliterating darkness.
The Star (Minneapolis)
MY TRAITORS HEART
MY TRAITORS HEART
A SOUTH AFRICAN EXILE RETURNS TO FACE
HIS COUNTRY, HIS TRIBE, AND HIS CONSCIENCE
RIAN MALAN
GROVE PRESS
New York
Copyright 1990 by Rian Malan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or .
Excerpt from Foe by J. M. Coetzee. Copyright J. M. Coetzee, 1986. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malan, Rian.
My traitors heart: a South African exile returns to face his country, his tribe, and his conscience / Rian Malan.
ISBN: 9780802193902
1. Malan, Rian. 2. Malan, RianFamily. 3. Malan family. 4. South AfricaExilesBiography. 5. HuguenotsSouth AfricaBiography. 6. South AfricaExilesGenealogy. 7. HuguenotsSouth AfricaGenealogy.
I. Title.
CT1929.M35A3 1990 929.20968dc20 89-15169
Design by Laura Hammond Hough
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Distributed by Publishers Group West
www.groveatlantic.com
10 11 12 13 1410 9 8 7 6
For the forgotten legions of the South African center, for my parents, and for Creina, who took the enormous risk of trusting me.
BOOK I
LIFE IN THIS STRANGE PLACE
How do I live in this strange place?
BERNOLDUS NIEMAND, from the
Boer reggae song Reggae Vibes Is Cool
I m burned out and starving to death, so Im just going to lay this all upon you and trust that youre a visionary reader, because the grand design, such as it is, is going to be hard for you to see. I know youre interested in my ancestors, so I guess I should begin at the very beginning. I am a Malan, descendant of Jacques Malan, a Huguenot who fled the France of Louis XIV to escape being put to the sword for his Protestant faith. He sought refuge among the Dutch, only to be put aboard ship in 1688 and sent to the Dark Continent, to the rude Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Jacques the Huguenot was the first Malan in Africa. In the centuries since, a Malan has been present at all the great dramas and turning points in the history of the Afrikaner tribe.
Jacques tamed the Cape and planted vineyards. His sons built gracious gabled homesteads in the lee of Table Mountain. His grandson Dawid the Younger ran off to the wild frontier in 1788, where he fought the savage Xhosa and took part in Slagtersnek, the first Afrikaner rebellion against the British.
Hercules, son of Dawid the Younger, led the third wave of Voortrekkers into the heart of Africa. In February 1838 he sat in the kraal of the great king Dingaan, watching a huge Zulu army wheeling back and forth on the plain. The sun glinted off thousands of spears. Feet thundered in unison. Clouds of dust rose into the sky. And then Dingaan cried, Kill the wizards, and Hercules and his seventy companions were murderedstakes driven up their anuses, skulls smashed with stones, and their bodies left on a hill for the vultures.
