Tsotsi

Tsotsi

by Athol Fugard (Author), Athol Fugard (Author), Jonathan Kaplan (Introduction)

Synopsis

This work is reissued to coincide with a major feature film adaptation. The film adaptation of "Tsotsi" is the official selection of South Africa for Best Foreign Film (Academy Awards 2005) and was awarded Best British Film and the Audience Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2005. This is a deeply affecting novel by one of South Africa's greatest contemporary writers. Set amidst the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto, where survival is the primary objective, "Tsotsi" traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader. Tsotsi has repressed his past and forgotten his true name; he exists only to stage and execute vicious crimes. After beating one of his own gang almost to death in an argument, Tsotsi attempts to rape a woman in a grove of bluegum trees. She manages to escape but not before thrusting a parcel into his hands. It contains a baby with 'a face that was small and black and older than anything he had ever seen in his life', a child that will mark the first stage of his long, reluctant path to redemption. Confronted with memories of his own painful childhood, this angry young man begins to rediscover his own humanity, dignity and capacity to love.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Edition: Main
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
Published: 02 Mar 2006

ISBN 10: 1841955663
ISBN 13: 9781841955667

Media Reviews
Extraordinarily powerful yet pulling back from sentimentality, Fugard's vision of a man discovering he has a future by facing up to his past, can't fail to have a deeper resonance in its South African context. * * The Guardian * *
This is a beautifully composed parable, and a concise psychological study of South Africa's lower depths. * * Daily Telegraph * *
In lean yet lyrical prose . . . [Athol Fugard] uncannily insinuates himself into the skins of the oppressed majority and articulates its rage and misery and hope. * * New York Times Book Review * *
One of the best novels in contemporary South African fiction . . . [Tsotsi] illustrates the cardinal Fugard principle ... that no matter how brutal the system which has destroyed families, broken bodies and reduced homes to rubble, it cannot turn out every light. * * Times Literary Supplement Review * *
Author Bio
Athol Fugard is one of the world's greatest living dramatists. His career spans fifty years of playwriting, stage and film acting, and directing. He has worked in South Africa, on and off Broadway and in London. Tsotsi is his only novel.