Overview
An acutely nuanced and original study of a state-sanctioned mass murderer. Not since Dead Man Walking have we seen so provocative a first-person encounter with the human face of evil. Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned apartheid death squads, is currently serving 212 years in jail for crimes against humanity. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who grew up in a black township in South Africa, served as a psychologist on that country's great national experiment in healing, the Truth and Reconcilation Commission. As this book opens, in an act of inescapable, multilayered symbolism and extraordinary psychological courage, Gobodo-Madikizela enters Pretoria's maximum security prison to meet the man called ""Prime Evil."" What follows is a journey into what it means to be human. Gobodo-Madikizela's experience with and deep empathy for victims of murderous violence, including those killed by de Kock and their families and friends, become clear in arresting scenes set during the TRC hearings, in which both perpetrators and their victims are given voice. The author's profound understanding of the language and memory of violence, and of the searingly complex issues surrounding apo
Full Product Details
Author: Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Imprint: Houghton Mifflin (Academic)
Dimensions:
Width: 13.30cm
, Height: 1.90cm
, Length: 20.30cm
Weight: 0.227kg
ISBN: 9780618446599
ISBN 10: 0618446591
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 19 April 2004
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
"""A startlingly personal account...written with clarity, energy, and enormous empathy."""
"""The story of an almost unimaginable dialogue...an exploration of evil, innocence, and the gray spaces in between."" -- New York Times ""A startingly personal account...written with clarity, energy, and enormous empathy."" -- Washington Post ""[A] psychologist of striking moral intelligence and clarity...Gobodo-Madikizela has composed a beautiful moral document."" -- Time ""There is no more unsettling mystery than what allows an apparently normal human being to take part in institutionalized mass murder. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela has every reason to loathe renowned death squad chief Eugene de Kock. But in this searching look at him, she gives evidence of an even greater human mystery: the capacity for understanding and compassion."" -- Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost ""An exploration of the workings of forgiveness, a persuasive argument for the South African formula for reconciliation via the road of truth, and, not least, a testament to the author's powers of sympathy."" -- J.M. Coetze, Nobel laureate and author of Disgrace"
A startlingly personal account...written with clarity, energy, and enormous empathy.
Author Information
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela holds the South African National Research Foundation Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma and is director of the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest at Stellenbosch University. She served on the Human Rights Violations Committee of South Africa's great national experiment in social repair, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Her book A Human Being Died That Night is in multiple translations and was winner of the Alan Paton Award and the Christopher Award. Gobodo-Madikizela is the recipient of numerous international awards and has delivered many public lectures, keynotes, and endowed lectures globally.
