Trade Paperback, 192 pages RRP: R145, ISBN 1-4152-0004-1 Publication date: March 2006, Category: Autobiography Description A no-holds-barred autobiography about coming of age in a Durban township in 1980s South Africa, Touch My Blood is written with warm humour and angry introspection by journalist and Sunday Times columnist Fred Khumalo against the background of township life, gangsterism and political violence. The phrase ‘touch my blood’ with which Fred greeted his friends as a teenager became the name by which he was known. His experiences range from smoking dagga with con men and criminals, to pick pocketing ‘corpses’ on the Friday night trains, to working as a gardener in the larney suburbs and drooling over pornographic photographs with his baas’s son. He studied journalism and shacked up with whiteys in a commune called the Snake Park, for a while the only darkie in a crazy swirl of booze and drugs and sex. And then the bloody fighting that tore KwaZulu-Natal apart in the 1900s threatened to engulf his life. A moving and harrowing story, Touch My Blood is peppered with amazing characters such as the American Dudes, Step-by-Step (who introduced Fred to the politics of Frank Talk and Pace), and the poet Mafika Pascal Gwala, who encouraged him to read the work of black writers and had some pungent advice for the budding journalist. Shortlisted for the 2007 Alan Paton Award. From Touch My Blood, p.110 “To call the American Dudes a gang would be a misnomer. They were a subculture that sprang from the American hip hop movement. America has had a profound effect on black urban culture since the 1950s. In the early 1980s, thanks to television, American pop culture bombarded us and we became an extension of the United States, culturally. American Dudes was an embodiment of the dominant pop culture. When I joined the movement we distinguished ourselves from other subcultures, such as the Mapantsula who wore trousers with stovepipe legs, by wearing tight-fitting Bang-bang jeans, tight-fitting muscle tops and high-heeled Watson or Barker shoes. Our hair would either be done in long bushy Afros or in gleaming curls. Our clothes were always bright – pink, orange, yellow – as if to announce to all and sundry: look at me, I am a cheerful clean boy who doesn’t skulk around street corners with those Mapantsulas and tsotsis. Unlike the Mapantsulas and tsotsis whose mission in life was to steal people’s money, the American Dudes were a bunch of shallow peaceful boys whose raison d’ętre was fun, fun and more fun.” From the reviews A very personal view of how we have changed. — Drum What Khumalo does so well is to introduce a lightness into what is a dark story. — Diane de Beer, Pretoria News … [it] is more than an autobiography; it’s an important documentation of SA’s not-so-distant past. — Glamour … a fascinating journey into an extraordinary life layered with gangsters, hedonism, political upheaval and loads of humour. — Siphiwe Mpye, BL!NK E-mail us a comment on this book. (Comments may be edited and used on this website.) To buy this book www.exclusivebooks.com www.kalahari.net home   writers   books   contact   buy   rights all content © Umuzi, Random House Struik this website designed and maintained by Guanaco.co.za