A moving, witty memoir about a Jewish childhood in apartheid-era South Africa

'Hilarious and heart-breaking' William Kentridge

What kind of bar mitzvah lasts only thirty minutes? As South African author Denis Hirson gradually reveals the details of his highly unusual ceremony, he explores the familial and political themes that thread their way through his story.

Recreating 1960s apartheid-era Johannesburg through his adolescent eyes, he writes of the silences that surrounded his Jewish heritage, and of the day that one of the family's secrets finally exploded. With the surprising help of his eleven-year-old daughter, Hirson is able to finally confront the troubles of his past with wisdom, humour and subtle lyricism.

“A potent story of a diaspora coming-of-age… [A] moving, historically significant memoir.” — Foreword Reviews

Denis Hirson has lived in France since 1975, yet has remained true to the title of one of his prose poems, 'The long-distance South African'. Most of his nine books, both poetry and prose, are concerned with the memory of the apartheid years in South Africa. Two of his previous titles, The House Next Door to Africa and I Remember King Kong (the Boxer) were South African bestsellers. His most recent books are Ma langue au chat, sub-titled 'tortures and delights of an English-speaker in Paris', and a book of conversations with William Kentridge, Footnotes for the Panther.