Herman Charles Bosman’s collection of short stories Mafeking Road has a tone of authenticity
that is hard to find in contemporary short fiction.
First there is the authorial voice: Bosman knows the
world he writes about, the Boer community at around the turn of the twentieth century, with precision. As such, he is
able to provide compelling details about his character, their setting and
time. Even the extensive use of Afrikaans
words in the text is not a distraction.
We realize that Bosman is translating a world from one language to the another. His authorial voice is our faithful guide.
Knowing his world so well, Bosman is able to
successfully lampoon it without either sounding overly mean or degrading to his
subjects. He captures the simple, crude
manners of the Transvaal Boers with a harsh reality, but his grounding in the
subject matter, his absolute knowledge, allows him to do this. He is not an outsider ridiculing from some
high perch. He is within this world, and
can comfortably take jabs at it.
Bosman uses dry humor, wit, and pungent observation
to make Makefing Road one of the finest short story collections I have
read. The tales in this collection move
with a vivacity and life which most contemporary writers can only fake.
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