Antjie Krog’s long-awaited new book “Begging to be Black” has been published and was launched in Cape Town on the 10th of November 2009.

In 1992, a gang leader was shot dead by an ANC member in Kroonstad. The murder weapon was then hidden on Antjie Krog’s stoep. In Begging to Be Black, Krog begins by exploring her position in this controversial case. From there the book ranges widely in scope, both in time – reaching back to the days of Basotho king Moshoeshoe – and in space – as we follow Krog’s experiences as a research fellow in Berlin, far from the Africa that produced her.

Begging to Be Black is a book of journeys – moral, historical, philosophical and geographical. These form strands that Krog interweaves and sets in conversation with each other, as she explores questions of change and becoming, coherency and connectedness, before drawing them closer together as the book approaches its powerful end.

Experimental and courageous, Begging to Be Black is a welcome addition to Krog’s own oeuvre and to South African literary non-fiction.

Antjie Krog was born in Kroonstad and grew up on a farm in the Free State. She has published eight volumes of poetry, several of which have been translated into European languages and have won local and international prizes. Down to My Last Skin, a collection of her poetry translated by her into English, won the inaugural FNB Vita Award for the best volume of poetry published in South Africa in 2000.

Krog and her SABC radio team received the Pringle Award for excellence in journalism for their reporting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and she won the Foreign Correspondent’s Award for outstanding journalism for her Mail & Guardian articles on the TRC.

Country of My Skull was published in 1998 and won numerous awards, including the Alan Paton Award and the Olive Schreiner Award for the best work of prose published between 1998 and 2000. It was followed by A Change of Tongue in 2003 and Begging to Be Black in 2009.

Antjie Krog is married to architect John Samuel, and is the mother of four children.

Click here to order this book from Red Pepper Books today for only R193.60 (incl.)

Click here for photos and videos of the launch…