Between Durban and Dixie (Under Revision)
Explore a curated list of books bridging Durban and Dixie, currently under revision. Discover insightful reads on history, culture, and connections between these iconic regions.
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Disgrace
by J. M. Coetzee
The provocative Booker Prize winning novel from Nobel laureate, J.M. Coetzee "Compulsively readable... A novel that not only works its spell but makes it impossible for us to lay it aside once we've finished reading it." —The New Yorker At fifty-two, Professor David Lurie is divorced, filled with desire, but lacking in passion. When an affair with a student leaves him jobless, shunned by friends, and ridiculed by his ex-wife, he retreats to his daughter Lucy's smallholding. David's visit becomes an extended stay as he attempts to find meaning in his one remaining relationship. Instead, an incident of unimaginable terror and violence forces father and daughter to confront their strained relationship and the equallity complicated racial complexities of the new South Africa. 2024 marks the 25th Anniversary of the publication of Disgrace
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Waiting for the Barbarians
by J. M. Coetzee
A modern classic by Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee. His latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state. J. M. Coetzee's prize-winning novel is a startling allegory of the war between opressor and opressed. The Magistrate is not simply a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times; his situation is that of all men living in unbearable complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency. Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall, Bridge of Spies), Ciro Guerra and producer Michael Fitzgerald are teaming up to to bring J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians to the big screen.
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Love in the Ruins
by Walker Percy
Amid the decadence and polarization of a future American society, a U.S. doctor discovers a promising cure for all the ills of the human psyche.
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Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
by James Agee
Words and photographs describe the daily lives of typical sharecropper families in the American South.
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My Traitor's Heart
by Rian Malan
A relative of the architect of apartheid who left the country offers his observations on his return, discussing the extremists that continue to divide the country.
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Bastard Out of Carolina
by Dorothy Allison
Ruth Ann Boatwright, a South Carolina bastard, tells her life with her family and the emotional and physical violence she experiences.
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Old Yeller
by Fred Gipson
At first, Travis couldn't stand the sight of Old Yeller The stray dog was ugly, and a thieving rascal, too. But he sure was clever, and a smart dog could be a big help on the wild Texas frontier, especially with Papa away on a long cattle drive up to Abilene. Strong and courageous, Old Yeller proved that he could protect Travis's family from any sort of danger. But can Travis do the same for Old Yeller?
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The Smell of Apples
by Mark Behr
The story of an affluent white South African family during apartheid. Its narrator is the son of an Afrikaner general and he describes his growing disillusion with the cruelty and arrogance of the whites. Set in the 1970s, the novel follows him from boyhood to soldiering in Angola, fighting the blacks.
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In Country RI
by Bobbie Ann Mason
A modest, beautiful, touching story of how Sam discovers ... who her father was and what the Vietnam War was about.
