Review: The story of South Africa, told like never before....
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 29, 2014
I've always had a great interest in South Africa, which was first kindled by a movie that I'd seen as a kid, “Power of One”, about a  white South African boxer fighting for the rights of blacks in the Apartheid era, and more more recently by the outstanding film, “Invictus” with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela.But I was looking for a “Big Book” on South Africa that really explains the evils of race segregation or Apartheid, giving a glimpse into South Africa's horrid past and how it was like for ordinary men and women living in those times.I found just the book I was looking for in K.P. Kollenborn's epic novel, “How the Water Falls”. The writer truly "gets it”. She truly understands the horrors of Apartheid and casts a searing look on how it affected life in the country. Her stories are about ordinary men and women, heroes and villains, victims and victimizers, both white and black.The treatment of black South Africans is reminiscent of the horrors perpetrated on Jews by Hitler's Nazis. The writer holds nothing back, and at no point does she try to tone down any of the atrocities. This is a brutally honest book, that leaves the reader absolutely riveted from the first page to the last.I was fascinated by the story of the two female protagonists of this book, one white and the other black, and the extraordinary bravery shown by them in confronting the evil of Apartheid head on, in their own way. Joanne and Lena are outstanding characters. On the other hand, the character who personifies the evil of the system that fostered Apartheid, Colonel Borghost, is suitably revolting.A truly brilliant book by a gifted writer, and deserves nothing less than 5 stars!