Want to know what books Kevin Bloom recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Kevin Bloom's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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A classic of literary nonfiction, My Traitor's Heart has been acclaimed as a masterpiece by readers around the world. Rian Malan is an Afrikaner, scion of a centuries-old clan and relative of the architect of apartheid, who fled South Africa after coming face-to-face with the atrocities and terrors of an undeclared civil war between the races. This book is the searing account of his return after eight years of uneasy exile. Armed with new insight and clarity, Malan explores apartheid's legacy of hatred and suffering, bearing witness to the extensive physical and emotional damage it has caused... more A classic of literary nonfiction, My Traitor's Heart has been acclaimed as a masterpiece by readers around the world. Rian Malan is an Afrikaner, scion of a centuries-old clan and relative of the architect of apartheid, who fled South Africa after coming face-to-face with the atrocities and terrors of an undeclared civil war between the races. This book is the searing account of his return after eight years of uneasy exile. Armed with new insight and clarity, Malan explores apartheid's legacy of hatred and suffering, bearing witness to the extensive physical and emotional damage it has caused to generations of South Africans on both sides of the color line. Plumbing the darkest recesses of the white and black South African psyches, Malan ultimately finds his way toward the light of redemption and healing. My Traitor's Heart is an astonishing book -- beautiful, horrifying, profound, and impossible to put down. less 
Philip GourevitchIt goes deep, deep, deep into individual lives, which I increasingly have come to believe is the only way that we can understand these large, political shapes, particularly in stories that are foreign to us. (Source)
Murtaza Mohammad HussainThis is an amazing book I’d never heard of. I feel it should be read by all Americans but even more so people from countries like Israel that are governed according to a system of racial caste https://t.co/0zSBlWTsY2 (Source)
Kevin BloomRian was commissioned by Random House to go and write the story of the history of his clan, but he realised 100 pages in that the story was actually a memoir and it was about his struggle. (Source)
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“Surely one of the most ingenious love letters—full of violence, fear, humour, and cunning—ever addressed to a city.” —Geoff Dyer
In the wake of apartheid, Johannesburg has changed - still divided, but now as much by poverty and violence as by race. Through precisely crafted snapshots, Ivan Vladislavic observes the unpredictable, day-to-day transformation of his embattled city: the homeless people using manholes as cupboards;a public statue slowly cannibalized for scrap. Most poignantly he charts the small, devastating changes along the post-apartheid streets: walls grow...
more “Surely one of the most ingenious love letters—full of violence, fear, humour, and cunning—ever addressed to a city.” —Geoff Dyer
In the wake of apartheid, Johannesburg has changed - still divided, but now as much by poverty and violence as by race. Through precisely crafted snapshots, Ivan Vladislavic observes the unpredictable, day-to-day transformation of his embattled city: the homeless people using manholes as cupboards;a public statue slowly cannibalized for scrap. Most poignantly he charts the small, devastating changes along the post-apartheid streets: walls grow higher; neighborhoods are gated; the keys multiply. Security - insecurity? - is the growth industry.
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Imraan CoovadiaAnother unpronounceable name. His dad may have been from Croatia or something. It’s always suspicious when people immigrate to South Africa. But Ivan is the most interesting writer on modern urban South Africa. Portrait with Keys is a fictionalised set of little stories. I thought it was a memoir at first but in the book he has conversations with a nonexistent brother. So I decided to classify it... (Source)
Kevin BloomI think that Ivan Vladislavic is probably our most unheralded writer. It is my personal belief that since J M Coetzee left for Australia, Ivan is the best craftsman living and working in South Africa today. He is an astoundingly accomplished master of the English sentence. This book is his first work of nonfiction. (Source)
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After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding.
For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become... more After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding.
For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faultlines in their relationship. less Kevin BloomThis book was written in the late 90s and although it is very difficult – especially with writers like J M Coetzee – to link the work to the man, my personal reading of the book is that it is a work of profound disappointment and sadness. It is all about a fifty-something professor, David Lurie, who teaches at a Cape Town university. He has an affair with a young student – Melanie. He gets hauled... (Source)
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Ever since Nelson Mandela dramatically walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing a radical transformation. In one of the most miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. Repressive laws mandating separation of the races were thrown out. The country, which had been carved into a crazy quilt that reserved the most prosperous areas for whites and the most desolate and backward for blacks, was reunited. The dreaded and dangerous security force, which for years had systematically tortured, spied... more Ever since Nelson Mandela dramatically walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing a radical transformation. In one of the most miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. Repressive laws mandating separation of the races were thrown out. The country, which had been carved into a crazy quilt that reserved the most prosperous areas for whites and the most desolate and backward for blacks, was reunited. The dreaded and dangerous security force, which for years had systematically tortured, spied upon, and harassed people of color and their white supporters, was dismantled. But how could this country--one of spectacular beauty and promise--come to terms with its ugly past? How could its people, whom the oppressive white government had pitted against one another, live side by side as friends and neighbors?
To begin the healing process, Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by the renowned cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Established in 1995, the commission faced the awesome task of hearing the testimony of the victims of apartheid as well as the oppressors. Amnesty was granted to those who offered a full confession of any crimes associated with apartheid. Since the commission began its work, it has been the central player in a drama that has riveted the country. In this book, Antjie Krog, a South African journalist and poet who has covered the work of the commission, recounts the drama, the horrors, the wrenching personal stories of the victims and their families. Through the testimonies of victims of abuse and violence, from the appearance of Winnie Mandela to former South African president P. W. Botha's extraordinary courthouse press conference, this award-winning poet leads us on an amazing journey.
Country of My Skull captures the complexity of the Truth Commission's work. The narrative is often traumatic, vivid, and provocative. Krog's powerful prose lures the reader actively and inventively through a mosaic of insights, impressions, and secret themes. This compelling tale is Antjie Krog's profound literary account of the mending of a country that was in colossal need of change. less Kevin BloomThis is an astounding work of nonfiction. Antjie is one of South Africa’s most important Afrikaans poets. This was her first full book-length work of English prose. She worked as a journalist for the South African Broadcasting Corporation at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and she went around the country listening to testimony of victims of apartheid and families of people who had been... (Source)
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Breyten Breytenbach | 4.30
Praise for Breyten Breytenbach's Return to Paradise:
"This wonderful book . . . is written with a wild heart and an unrelenting eye, and is fueled by the sort of rage that produces great literature."—The Washington Post
What is the place of the artist and writer in a globalized world? In dialogue with the voices of the dead and the living—Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama— internationally distinguished South African artist, activist, and writer Breyten Breytenbach's new collection of essays traces the collisions between utopia... more Praise for Breyten Breytenbach's Return to Paradise:
"This wonderful book . . . is written with a wild heart and an unrelenting eye, and is fueled by the sort of rage that produces great literature."—The Washington Post
What is the place of the artist and writer in a globalized world? In dialogue with the voices of the dead and the living—Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama— internationally distinguished South African artist, activist, and writer Breyten Breytenbach's new collection of essays traces the collisions between utopia and disaster, political trauma, and the renewal of hope. Notes from the Middle World is a beautiful and heartwrenching book. These essays include a glimpse of a buried language created in the Hunan province by and for women, an open letter to Nelson Mandela reflecting on the perilous state of post-apartheid South Africa, and existential and linguistic explorations. Against the conformity of power, Breytenbach takes readers on a journey through the "Middle World," an imagined space beyond borders and exile, toward an embracing vision of justice for the "un-citizens" post-modernity has dispossessed.
A native of South Africa, Breyten Breytenbach is a distinguished painter, activist, and prolific writer. His most recent writing has been published in Harper's Magazine. From 1975–1982, he was a political prisoner serving solitary confinement in South African prisons. Today, Breytenbach is a Global Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at New York University. less Kevin BloomI had a profound problem with this book, which I will come to in a moment. Breyten Breytenback is another one of our most esteemed Afrikaans poets. His most celebrated work of English prose is The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, which was a memoir about his seven years in prison. (Source)
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