The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay (1992)

The Power Of One (by Bryce Coutenay) is one of the most amazing novels that I have ever read. I have read a lot of good books, but this stands apart from one of the others in a small cluster of my *most favorite* books. I first read it almost fourteen years, and I find myself taking it down from the shelf to read every so often. This is the story of a boy with no name. Although we learn the intimate details of his life, we never learn his given name. He chooses to go by Peekay, and you will have to read the book to find out why. Peekay is a young boy growing up in South Africa. His story...

"First with the head and then with the heart- small can beat big" The story of Peekay told through this book is one of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century. Throughout the breakdown of apartheid in South Africa in the early to mid-90s, I never quite understood just what it meant for all South Africans. Certainly it was quite easy to make sweeping generalisations about the character and ethics of the white and black citizens of the time. Until I read this novel though,none of it seemed relevant to me, a woman living in Australia who did not believe that racism had touched...

________________________________________ Title: The Power of One Entertaining Read .. Recommended . 4 stars _______________________________________ The Review The narrative opens in Northern Transvaal, South Africa. It is 1939. Tracing the experiences of Peekay, an English-speaking South African youngster beginning at age five to age eleven (the original version continues to age seventeen). Following his mother s nervous breakdown, the five-year-old Peekay is cared for by his Zulu nanny Mary Mandoma and his Grandfather on a farm in the province of Natal. He is sent to an Afrikaans boarding...

This is, without a doubt, one of the most important books I have ever read. I picked this up at the tender age of 12; before then I had only read young-adult fiction, and the occaisional escapist sci-fi or fantasy author. The grim, horrifying nature of this book brought a protected world crashing down around my ears, changing it forever. And my life was much better for it. Basically put, the book details the story of Peekay, a young white child growing up in the violent and racist South Africa of the 1930's and 40's. Apparently protected from the world surrounding him, he is sent to a...