We Are Not Such Things by Justine Van Der Leun

We Are Not Such Things by Justine Van Der Leun

Justine van der Leun reopens the murder of a young American woman in South Africa, an iconic case that calls into question our understanding of truth and reconciliation, loyalty, justice, race, and class.The story of Amy Biehl is well known in South Africa. The twenty-six-year-old white American Fulbright scholar was brutally murdered on August 25, 1993, during the final, fiery days of apartheid by a mob of young black men in a township outside Cape Town. Her parents' forgiveness of two of her killers became a symbol of the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa. Justine van der Leun decided to introduce the story to an American audience. But as she delved into the case, the prevailing narrative started to unravel. Why didn't the eyewitness reports agree on who killed Amy Biehl? Were the men convicted of the murder actually responsible for her death? And then Van der Leun discovered another brutal crime committed on the same day, in the very same area. The true story of Amy Biehl's death, it turned out, was not only a story of forgiveness but also a reflection of the complicated history of a troubled country.We Are Not Such Things is the result of Van der Leun's four-year investigation into this strange, knotted tale of injustice, violence, and compassion. The bizarre twists and turns of this case and its aftermath--and the story that emerges of what happened on that fateful day in 1993 and in the decades that followed--come together in an unsparing account of life in South Africa today. Van der Leun immerses herself in the lives of her subjects and paints a stark, moving portrait of a township and its residents. We come to understand that the issues at the heart of her investigation are universal in scope and powerful in resonance.We Are Not Such Things reveals how reconciliation is impossible without an acknowledgment of the past, a lesson as relevant to America today as to a South Africa still struggling with the long shadow of its history.

‘Gripping, explosive. . crafts a close sense of place that rivals the work of Katherine Boo’ New York Times

‘Beautifully written and carefully observed … a Truman Capote-style detective story in which Van der Leun rummages for clues through the detritus of modern South Africa’ Financial Times

‘A total page-turner, a gripping Serial-like true-crime story’ Vogue

‘Deeply researched and thought-provoking . . . an engaging take on a murder that might have derailed democracy’ Economist

'Unforgettable. A gripping narrative that examines the messiness of truth, the illusory nature of reconciliation, the all too often false promise of justice' Boston Globe

‘Extraordinary. A dense and nuanced portrait of a country whose confounding, convoluted past is never quite history’ Entertainment Weekly

‘Moving . . . necessary . . . A story of frustrated expectations, broken dreams, endemic greed and corruption, but also indomitable human spirit’ Minneapolis Star Tribune

‘A murder story told with the dramatic tension of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and the precision of the very best non-fiction reporting. Each page bursts with fresh insights’ Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy

‘Fascinating. Shatters convenient narratives about the end of apartheid and the nature of justice, and takes readers on a headlong chase for deeper truths’ Jill Leovy, author of Ghettoside

‘Suspenseful and engrossing. Van der Leun shows how a powerful desire for reconciliation can in fact obscure the truth, a truth we need in order to establish real equity and the justice that all people deserve’ Piper Kerman, author of Orange is the New Black

‘A book I kept returning to. Van der Leun has a compassionate but admirably clear eye’ Michela Wrong, Spectator Books of the Year

Justine van der leun has written about South Africa for Harper’s and the Guardian. She lived in Cape Town from 2011 to 2013 and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780008191078
ISBN 10	0008191077
Title	We Are Not Such Things
Author	Justine Van Der Leun
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers
Year published	2016-06-30
Number of pages	544
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.