The Tokolosh - Ronald Segal
“This is the story of the Tokolosh and the black people. Now that it is all over, there are those who say it never happened like this, that the Tokolosh is just a giggling of fat washerwomen by the river stones. Yet surely the Tokolosh is real and surely he came to live for a while in the Townships. For nothing is the same any more since the time of his coming, neither for those who believe nor for those who say they do not.”
The Tokolosh is a sort of African Puck. In this story he is used as the focal point of a study in the pattern of mounting tension and growing desperation brought about by the policy of apartheid, with all that it implies.
The story is a simple one, told with a cutting edge of grimly humorous satire, with passionate moral conviction, and, to an amazing extent, without bitterness. It concerns what happens when the inhabitants of the African Townships outside a certain South African Town break out in protest against a bus fare increase which is trifling in itself but heavily burdensome on their pitiful budgets. The will to protest, the will to unite, the will to laugh at the wooden-faced absurdities of racial discrimination—these find their symbol in the figure of the Tokolosh, whose power is felt on the frightening morning when the great city is left almost helpless, because its black servants have refused to came.
Sheed & Ward 1960 Paperback
Condition: Extremely Good with browning on pages
MB (Africana)
“This is the story of the Tokolosh and the black people. Now that it is all over, there are those who say it never happened like this, that the Tokolosh is just a giggling of fat washerwomen by the river stones. Yet surely the Tokolosh is real and surely he came to live for a while in the Townships. For nothing is the same any more since the time of his coming, neither for those who believe nor for those who say they do not.”
The Tokolosh is a sort of African Puck. In this story he is used as the focal point of a study in the pattern of mounting tension and growing desperation brought about by the policy of apartheid, with all that it implies.
The story is a simple one, told with a cutting edge of grimly humorous satire, with passionate moral conviction, and, to an amazing extent, without bitterness. It concerns what happens when the inhabitants of the African Townships outside a certain South African Town break out in protest against a bus fare increase which is trifling in itself but heavily burdensome on their pitiful budgets. The will to protest, the will to unite, the will to laugh at the wooden-faced absurdities of racial discrimination—these find their symbol in the figure of the Tokolosh, whose power is felt on the frightening morning when the great city is left almost helpless, because its black servants have refused to came.
Sheed & Ward 1960 Paperback
Condition: Extremely Good with browning on pages
MB (Africana)
“This is the story of the Tokolosh and the black people. Now that it is all over, there are those who say it never happened like this, that the Tokolosh is just a giggling of fat washerwomen by the river stones. Yet surely the Tokolosh is real and surely he came to live for a while in the Townships. For nothing is the same any more since the time of his coming, neither for those who believe nor for those who say they do not.”
The Tokolosh is a sort of African Puck. In this story he is used as the focal point of a study in the pattern of mounting tension and growing desperation brought about by the policy of apartheid, with all that it implies.
The story is a simple one, told with a cutting edge of grimly humorous satire, with passionate moral conviction, and, to an amazing extent, without bitterness. It concerns what happens when the inhabitants of the African Townships outside a certain South African Town break out in protest against a bus fare increase which is trifling in itself but heavily burdensome on their pitiful budgets. The will to protest, the will to unite, the will to laugh at the wooden-faced absurdities of racial discrimination—these find their symbol in the figure of the Tokolosh, whose power is felt on the frightening morning when the great city is left almost helpless, because its black servants have refused to came.
Sheed & Ward 1960 Paperback
Condition: Extremely Good with browning on pages
MB (Africana)