cover image Inside Apartheid: One Woman's Struggle in South Africa

Inside Apartheid: One Woman's Struggle in South Africa

Janet Levine. McGraw-Hill/Contemporary, $18.95 (287pp) ISBN 978-0-8092-4544-4

Although hundreds of books and articles have informed us of conditions in South Africa, this moving personal story sheds still more light on a tragic situation. Despite a shielded, middle-class upbringing in Johannesburg, Levine nevertheless became aware of the malignant effects of apartheid when she was still young; as the police and military imprisoned, tortured, banished and shot thousands of blacks, she became an active opponent of the regime, she notes. Eventually, as a city councilor and newspaper columnist, she was able to criticize and focus media attention on the government's policies and their effects. In the end, however, she felt that blacksand not white liberals, despite their good intentionswere the only ones who could effectively lead the fight for freedom; as a result, she and her family emigrated to the U.S. and she now teaches in Boston. Photos. (Jan.)