The End of Normal
Description
It was the beginning of 1976 and life was good.
White South Africans danced along to Queen and ABBA. There was huge anticipation of the pending All Black rugby tour in July - and at last South Africa had TV!
And then came the Soweto student uprising in June. It was the end of normal, setting in motion a series of events that culminated in the negotiated settlement of 1994.
MAX DU PREEZ, born and raised in a conservative Afrikaner Christian Nationalist family, witnessed the first stones thrown on 16 June - and the first shots fired - as a young newspaper reporter. That was also the end of his normal.
In the half century since those seismic days, Du Preez has had a front-row seat to South Africa's darkest and brightest moments. The End of Normal explores how otherwise decent people came to implement and support the evil system of apartheid. He examines the long-term impact of 16 June and takes a hard look at attitudes today, in particular the recent resurgence of Afrikaner nationalism.
In this highly readable account, replete with anecdotes, confessions and revelations, Du Preez pulls no punches.
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Max du Preez is an author and journalist. He was the founder and editor of Vrye Weekblad, the first anti-apartheid newspaper in Afrikaans, in 1988. Among his numerous awards are the Pringle Award for advancing press freedom, honoris causa degrees from the universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch and the Free State, the Nat Nakasa Award for courageous reporting, the Louis M Lyons Award for conscience and integrity in journalism from Harvard University, the 2006 Yale Globalist Journalist of the Year Award, the Ahmed Kathrada Leadership Award and the Versnit and ATKV Prestige awards for his contribution to the Afrikaans language and culture. His previous book, A Rumour of Spring, received the Alan Paton Prize for non-fiction.
