A Mouthful of Glass

A Mouthful of Glass

by HenkvanWoerden (Author), Dan Jacobson (Translator)

Synopsis

A short, tough story of an assassin - the man who killed Hendrick Verwoed, the racist prime minister of South Africa, in 1966. Born in Mozambique of a Greek father and African mother, Demitrios Tsafendas was a man lost between the races, maddened by not knowing who or what he was. He thought he was white until his father abandoned him. He then discovered he was 'coloured'. He spent twenty-five years wandering the world looking for a home, growing stranger and more desperate. In 1965 he arrived in South Africa and got a job as a messenger in the parliament building - a job reserved for whites. Then he bought a knife.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Granta Books
Published: 31 Aug 2001

ISBN 10: 1862074429
ISBN 13: 9781862074422
Book Overview: The story of an assassin - the man who killed Hendrick Verwoed, the racist prime minister of South Africa, in 1966. The killer was a man lost between the races, maddened by not knowing who or what he was.

Media Reviews
A tough, unforgettable portrait of Demetrios Tsafendas, the assassin who killed Prime Minister Verwoerd of South Africa in 1966, a killer lost between the races, maddened by not knowing who or what he was. A brilliant account of the madness of apartheid.
Author Bio
Henk van Woerden was a painter and the author of four novels, including A Mouthful of Glass. He spent his childhood in South Africa. Recently living in Amsterdam, he became highly regarded in the Netherlands, were he died in 2005. Dan Jacobson, who grew up in Kimberly, South Africa, is the author of many distinguished works of fiction, including The Rape of Tamar and The God-Fearer. His most recent book, Heshel's Kingdom, was published in 1998.