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Editorial:
Spring Fever Comment:
What is Reconciliation? From
the Director: Ireland is changing and so are we! The
Whole Gospel for the Whole World (and beyond...) Rwanda
Ten Years On Anglo-Irish
Relations The
Hard Gospel Interview
with Robin Eames: RECONCILIATION - A View from Armagh Interview
with Sean Brady: RECONCILIATION - A View from Armagh Church-based
Peacebuilding Evangelism
& Reconciliation - are they irreconcilable? Dogville
and the Drama of Redemption Blessed
are the Peacemakers? Review:
Bitter Fruit Review:
The Colour of Darkness Review:
The Lost Message of Jesus Review:
The Futures of Evangelicalism Review:
Evangelicals in Ireland: An Introduction |
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review: BITTER FRUIT leaves the reader unsettled. Is the Ali family, struggling to survive in post-apartheid South Africa, doomed to remain the bitter product of the emancipation struggle they shaped? Or is there hope that, in spite of the horrors the family has endured, their bitter fruit may one day ripen? Among the greatest strengths of Achmat Dangor’s Booker Prize Shortlisted novel is its refusal to grant simple answers to these painful questions. Although set amid the political turbulence of post-apartheid South Africa, this is novel of family more than politics. Silas, a former leader of the underground resistance and current official in Mandela’s government, struggles to find the energy to save his family from its past. Lydia, his wife, staggers under the weight of a violation that she can neither ignore nor confront. Their son Mikey, both brilliant and frighteningly determined, senses his parents’ pain, but cannot heal their deep wounds. The bitterness of their story is unmistakable from the novel’s beginning. While Silas is a respected public official, his private strength to support his family is drained. This resolve has never recovered from the central event of the novel: Lydia’s rape at the hands of government police during the resistance. He has devoted his life to fighting for freedom, yet when it comes to comforting his wife, finds himself ‘drained of all his enthusiasm for the struggle this would demand.’ More horrible still, Lydia remains convinced that Mikey is the child of her rape. She pours her love into him to save him from the genes of his rapist father, but senses that she will never be up to the task. Dangor’s portrait of Lydia throughout the story is incredibly moving, a woman ‘reduced to waiting for the voices of people she has grown tired of, a husband she no longer loves and a son she loves too much.’ Her fruit is surely the most bitter, and yet she finds no one to help her bear her pain. Mikey grows into the most ambiguous character of the story. The reader pities his uncertainty about his lineage, and admires his intellect and beauty. At the same time, throughout he novel he grows into a cold man who uses both sexuality and violence to exact vengeance on the world. He acts to confront the past, but can only do so in a way that brings even more pain and fear to his family. Both father and son are ultimately consumed by the past, Silas for his inaction and Mikey for his vengeance. Dangor portrays their tragic ends with an admirable combination of compassion and judgment. Lydia is left alone again, and speeds from Johannesburg. It is in her departure that the reader is challenged to find hope. She arrives in Cape Town on Christmas Eve, searching for a new birth of joy after what has been a terribly bitter time. DAVID BUCKLEY is Research Assistant with the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland. BITTER FRUIT, Achmat Dangor, Published by Atlantic Books, London, 2004. |
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