A Burning Hunger: One Family's Struggle Against Apartheid

Five black South African brothers from a moderate, religious home emerged as political heroes during the 1970s and '80s. Their fame came mostly from the events of a single day—June 16, 1976—when middle school and high school students held a nonviolent march to protest a government ruling that required half of all school subjects to be taught in Afrikaans, a language few black children knew. Police shot dozens of children at the march, and Tsietsi Mashinini, one of its organizers, became an enemy of the state. His siblings Rocks, Mpho, Dee and Tshepiso, at once cursed by their brother's notoriety and blessed with his gift for political organizing and public speaking, became leaders in the antiapartheid movement and eventually followed their brother into hiding, prison and exile. Schuster's five-way biography captures the antiapartheid movement from the perspective of adolescents, but her book is hampered by complicated accounts of infighting among political factions, and the journeys of its protagonists are sometimes difficult to follow. Yet the essential story remains crystal clear: this is a book about the sacrifices a family made for a cause much greater than they. (Apr.)