Mine Boy: Peter Abrahams

And the black man and the white were like two men alone in the world ….

Xuma will never forget the day he arrived in the Johannesburg slums: the charismatic woman who takes him in, the brutal police raids, the fights, friendships, dancing, drinking and romances – yet it soon feels like home. But when he becomes a leader in the city’s gold mines, he is shocked by the racist treatment of the labourers. And as he begins to question whether ‘man could be without colour’, Xuma stages an act of defiance that changes his life forever . . .

In 1946, Peter Abrahams’ classic novel Mine Boy exposed South Africa’s fledgling racial apartheid system and townships to the world – and its wisdom, vividness and political power endures to this day.