"Don’t run away from who you are. Rather use the power of your surname for good,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu told Wilhelm Verwoerd.
When, in the 1990s, Wilhelm Verwoerd spoke out against his grandfathers racist policies, his father called him a traitor. After many years of working in Northern Ireland, brokering peace between former enemies, he returns to his homeland to make his own peace. Back home, as he listens to his black neighbours’ and friends’ painful stories of the past, he struggles to reconcile the hated symbol of apartheid with the loving husband he encounters in Betsie Verwoerd’s intimate diaries.
This moving memoir examines the complexities of having Verwoerd blood in your veins in the full knowledge that HF Verwoerd had blood on his hands. It is an unflinchingly honest look at loyalty, kinship and the demands of restitution in South Africa.
“Filled with fascinating insights into the legacy of a man who represented good for his people, while entrenching himself as one of the cornerstones of evil for my people.”
— Lukhanyo Calata
“A grandson s attempt to make sense of his legacy makes for an exceptional narrative ... a powerful book.”
- Maarten Mittner, Business Day
English
