A dozen years in the making, The Inheritors weaves together the stories of three South Africans over five tumultuous decades in a sweeping and exquisite look at what really happens when a country resolves to end white supremacy.
“[A] searching debut… Fairbanks’s vivid reportage depicts a South Africa awash in racial unease and false consciousness … Distinguished by its sympathetic yet clear-eyed viewpoint, this vital study lays bare the complex, agonizing predicaments that flow from South Africa’s tragic past.”
Praise for The Inheritors
“Easily the most compelling new nonfiction book I’ve read in years. The Inheritors is not just a spellbinding, beautifully written story about apartheid South Africa, but also an augury for America today.”
— Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
“Eve Fairbanks writes with a rare combination of fearless psychological insight and political intelligence. This is a tremendous book: utterly absorbing, masterfully observed, and urgently thought-provoking. This chronicle of South Africans living in the riptides of history holds up a mirror to us all.”
— Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
“A brilliantly reported and deeply felt account of contemporary South Africa, written with a sharp eye for ironies and contradictions and the disturbing implications those may have for today’s America.”
—Francis Fukuyama, award-winning author of The End of History and the Last Man
“A sensitive, often engrossing portrait of the nation during and after apartheid... [R]eaders won’t soon forget Dipuo and Malaika.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“The Inheritors does the brutal and scintillating work of asking and answering the question of how truly lasting is liberation, inviting us into the interior lives of four of the most complicated and complicating characters I’ve read this century. Bookmaking like this is a rigorous feat of wonder, love and risk.”
— Kiese Laymon, award-winning author of Heavy
“Eve Fairbanks brings post-apartheid South Africa to rich, brilliant, witty, tragic, and humane life as only a wonderfully gifted writer who has lived her subject can.”
—George Packer, author of The Unwinding, winner of the National Book Award
“Many times while reading this book you will stop, shiver, shake your head, and sigh. Lyrical, deep, chilling, and prescient, it’s a book we will be talking about for years to come.”
—Justice Malala, author of the #1 South African bestseller We Have Now Begun Our Descent