South Africa is in the throes of a great reckoning, Eve Fairbanks (South Africa, 2009-2011) writes in her debut book, The Inheritors, expected July 19, 2022.
“A dozen years in the making, The Inheritors weaves together the stories of three ordinary South Africans over five tumultuous decades in a sweeping and exquisite look at what really happens when a country resolves to end white supremacy,” publisher Simon & Schuster writes.
Eve spent her ICWA fellowship investigating medicine, politics and social change in South Africa. She is a former political writer for The New Republic, and her essays and reportage have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Guardian. Born in Virginia, she now lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Praise for The Inheritors:
“Eve Fairbanks brings post-apartheid South Africa to rich, brilliant, witty, tragic, and humane life as only a wonderfully gifted writer who has lived her subject can.” —George Packer, author of The Unwinding, winner of the National Book Award
“A brilliantly reported and deeply felt account of contemporary South Africa, written with a sharp eye for ironies and contradictions and the disturbing implications those may have for today’s America.”—Francis Fukuyama, award-winning author of The End of History and the Last Man
“Fairbanks’s vivid reportage depicts a South Africa awash in racial unease and false consciousness… Distinguished by its sympathetic yet clear-eyed viewpoint, this vital study lays bare the complex, agonizing predicaments that flow from South Africa’s tragic past.”—Publisher Weekly (starred review)
“A sensitive, often engrossing portrait of the nation during and after apartheid… [R]eaders won’t soon forget Dipuo and Malaika.”—Kirkus Reviews
Top photo: downtown Johannesburg (Jorge Láscar, Wikimedia Commons)
