The World Beneath

February 29, 2016
London journalist Warman, who grew up as a “privileged white child” in Cape Town during South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, sets this affecting novel in that same city and era. It is 1976, and Joshua, a black child, lives in a backyard hut with his mother, a maid for an affluent white couple. Visiting from “Jo’burg,” Joshua’s older brother tells him that he and others are covertly rebelling against the oppressive, racist government. Joshua embarks on his own risky undertaking when he shelters an injured anti-apartheid activist on the lam from the police. After the fugitive is discovered and Joshua comes under suspicion, two freedom fighters take him to an insurgent training camp in Angola for safekeeping. Through the eyes of an innocent boy trying to fathom the injustice and brutality of apartheid, as well as his own potentially violent role in the struggle, Warman presents a gripping personal portrait of a horrific chapter in South Africa’s history. Avoiding didacticism, her novel lets the facts speak for themselves, making Joshua’s story all the more hard-hitting. Ages 12–up.

Narrator Debi Hawkins grew up in Africa and still lives there, so it's not surprising that she's so fluent in portraying both the Xhosa-speaking young Joshua and his mother, as well as the Afrikaans language of white South Africans. She brings realism and character distinction to this story of a boy who learns to fight South Africa's apartheid system in 1976. Speaking in the present tense, Hawkins captures the haughty orders given by Afrikaner Mrs. Malherbes; the joviality of Joshua, which dims as he ages; the clicking warning used by Joshua's mother in times of danger; and the urgent whispers of black revolutionaries and their white coconspirators. Warman's novel shows the complex relationships that existed between whites and blacks as they struggled for and against apartheid. L.T. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine