Journey to Jo’burg

Author/Guide: Beverley Naidoo

Why a Booktrail?

1948 – 1990s: The story of apartheid.

ISBN: 978-0007263509
Genre: Childrens

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What you need to know before your trail

This is the story of love, commitment and the flowering of the human spirit against the background of South Africa’s apartheid. Frightened that their baby sister Dineo will die, thirteen-year-old Naledi and her younger brother Tiro run away from their grandmother to Johannesburg to find their mother, who works there as a maid. Their journey illustrates at every turn the grim realities of apartheid – the pass laws, bantustans, racism, the breakdown of family life. The opulence of the white “Madam’s” house contrasts starkly with the reality that Naledi and Tiro face – that their baby sister is suffering from starvation, not an incurable disease.

Travel Guide

Apartheid and Johannesburg

When the author wrote this book, South Africa was a place that had a very special kind of political structure; it was ruled by a white elite that had its origins in two countries – Britain and Holland. So, the two languages of those who ruled were English and a form of Dutch called Afrikaans. There was also a big minority of people of Eastern European Jewish origin, they tended to speak English rather than Afrikaans.

The large majority of people living under this rule came from the many nations of Africans – people like the Tswana and the Zulus – who had been living on the continent of Africa long before the British or Dutch had come to settle and rule there. The system of rule was called Apartheid, an Afrikaans word means ‘Separateness’.

This was more than living apart however. The degree of separation was cruel and far reaching. White people in Africa were the only ones to benefit from the system.