A Good-looking Corpse: The World of Drum - Jazz and Gangsters, Hope and Defiance in the Townships of South Africa

by Mike Nicol (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1991

  $7.03

  This book recounts the 1950s in South Africa - a decade of optimism and hope that ended, tragically, with the massacre at Sharpeville - as seen through the microcosm of Drum , a magazine produced in Johannesburg for black readers. The Drum writers - Henry Nxumalo, Can Themba, Bloke Modisane, Todd Matshikiza, Casey Motisi - lived by the precept live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse . These black writers on Drum - who were later joined by Lewis Nkosi and Nat Nakasa - were responsible for a range of investigative journalism, the best of which is reproduced here, alongside tributes from friends and colleagues including Anthony Sampson, Nadine Gordimer, Trevor Huddleston and Walter Sisulu.

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $54.82

  The 1950s in South Africa were a time of optimism that was abruptly halted by the Sharpeville Massacre. This is an account of those years as seen through the microcosm of Drum , an illustrated magazine produced in Johannesburg for Blacks. Although owned and edited by Whites, it employed a group of black writers who lived by the precept, Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse . They surveyed the world of the townships, exposed the realities of apartheid, and charted the growing resistance movement. The book reproduces the journalism and recalls the struggles, triumphs and tragedies of those who participated.