The Colour of Right

The story begins in the 1970’s.

It rolls through Southern Africa, the Eastern Cape, Transkei, Rhodes University, the Waterberg and New York.

We are all there, in one way or another.

Evan, the annoying Jew-boy, Lwazi the Xhosa intellectual turned guerrilla-terrorist, Le Roux the church-goer from BOSS, Vlam Fourie the angry security policeman, and his side-kick – Zulu the assassin. Let’s not forget about Randy Rick playing the game, the delicious Nicci, and Daan the Afrikaner visionary. Vishnu trades in more than vegetables. Chris hangs on the fringes.

The Colour of Right is Alexx Zarr’s first book in a Trilogy that covers forty years of South Africa’s recent past, its present, and future.

It follows the lives of a group of youthful South Africans who face typical choices and experiences of all young folk, everywhere, but also the particular choices presented to them in a country wrestling with itself.

Their story criss-crosses four decades of a country’s demise and the rise of a new one filled with the hopes and dreams of a fresh start, fear of the unknown, and disappointments of failure.

Through their own decisions, and of those around them, they discover that human failings too easily get in the way of noble principles. Some fail the test, on both sides.

Many of the fundamental issues that confront the characters in The Colour of Right are not yesterday’s issues, but ones that still face humanity today, in both South Africa and elsewhere.

Zarr’s narrative forces the reader to face his own beliefs, principles and behaviours through these very real people, and the choices they make.

Perhaps it is true - an enduring feature of humanity is that we learn little from our past.