A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid

by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

Overview

An acutely nuanced and original study of a state-sanctioned mass murderer, A Human Being Died That Night explores what it means to be human—both the good and the evil within us.

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a psychologist who grew up in a black South African township, reflects on her interviews with Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned death squads under apartheid.

Gobodo-Madikizela met with de Kock in Pretoria's maximum-security prison, where he was serving a 212-year sentence for crimes against humanity. In profoundly arresting scenes, Gobodo-Madikizela conveys her struggle with contradictory internal impulses to hold him accountable and to forgive.

Ultimately, as she allows us to witness de Kock's extraordinary awakening of conscience, she illuminates the ways in which the encounter compelled her to redefine the value of remorse and the limits of forgiveness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780618446599
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/19/2004
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	540,415
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.56(d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

1.	Scenes from Apartheid	1
2.	An Encounter with "Prime Evil"	13
3.	The Trigger Hand	37
4.	The Evolution of Evil	48
5.	The Language of Trauma	79
6.	Apartheid of the Mind	104
7.	"I Have No Hatred in My Heart"	117
	Epilogue	134
Appendix	A Short History of Apartheid	143
	Notes	149
	Acknowledgments	177
	Index	183

Editorial Reviews

“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

From the Publisher