David's Story

A new edition of the post-apartheid literary classic by one of South Africa's greatest writers.

South Africa, 1991: Nelson Mandela is freed from prison, the African National Congress is now legal, and a new day dawns in Cape Town. David Dirkse, part of the underground world of activists, spies, and saboteurs in the liberation movement, suddenly finds himself above ground. With "time to think" after the unbanning of the movement, David investigates his family tree, tracing his bloodline to the mixed-race "Coloured" people of South Africa and their antecedents among the indigenous people and early colonial settlers. But as David studies his roots, he soon learns that he's on a hit list. Now caught in a web of surveillance and betrayal, he's forced to rethink his role in the struggle for "nonracial democracy," the loyalty of his "comrades," and his own conceptions of freedom.

Hailed by J. M. Coetzee as "a tremendous achievement," Zoë Wicomb's mesmerizing and multilayered novel delivers a moving examination of the nature of political vision, memory, and truth. This new edition will include updated front matter that celebrates the book's status as a South African classic and honors Wicomb's literary legacy.