Mafeking Road

In a series of tales, South Africa’s greatest short story writer reveals a little-described—and rarely romanticized—world of Afrikaner life in the late 19th century

Like our own Mark Twain, Herman Charles Bosman wields a laughing intolerance of foolishness and prejudice, a dazzling use of wit and clear-sighted judgment. Spun by the plainclothes local visionary and storyteller Oom Shalk Lourens, these moving and satirical glimpses of lethargic herdsmen, ambitious concertina players, legenda...