Abstract:
For more than two years Antjie Krog worked in acute engagement with the many voices that arose in and around South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. From the legislative genesis of the Commission, through the testimonies of victims of abuse and violence, and the activities of apartheid's operatives, the appearance of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former President PW Botha's courthouse press conference, the Commission's meeting with the media in Robben Island early in 1998 - this award-winning poet leads us on an extraordinary odyssey. "Country of my skull" captures the complexity of the Truth Commission's work in a uniquely personal narrative which is harrowing, illuminating and provocative. Before the Commission. They never wept, the men of my race. None more parted than us. First hearings. Bereaved and dumb, the high southern air succumbs. The narrative of betrayal has to be reinvented every time. The sound of the second narrative. The wet bag and other phantoms. Two women: let us hear it in another language. Guilt is on the move with all her mantles. Politics. The political page curls over itself. Reconciliation: the leser of two evils. Amnesty: in transit with the ghosts. The political tongue at anchor. Reactions. Blood rains in every latitude. Letters on the acoustics of scars. It gets to all of us - from Tutu to Mamasela. Truth is a women. Then burst the mighty heart. Unwinding. The shepherd and the landscape of my bones. A tragedy of errors. Mother faces the nation. Beloved country of grief and grace.
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