Nelson Mandela buried a gun at his secret hideout shortly before his betrayal by the CIA and capture by the South African Police. The gun has never been found. This tantalizing and historically documented fact is the catalyst for a high concept novel about competing quests for freedom and the struggle for power in South Africa, a sweeping saga set against the backdrop of the country’s violent history, vivid landscape, and the rise of apartheid.

Amandla is told from the points of view of memorable characters whose lives are inextricably entangled through three generations of Mandela’s family and De Beer’s immigrant Afrikaner family. Their fictional forebears fight a historic battle that turns a river red with the blood of warriors, and in a war between an army of farmers and the might of the British Empire. Both families face the horrors of segregated genocide in black and white concentration camps, as well as enduring destitution as manual laborers on farms and in goldmines, while on the national stage their antipathies are fueled by the rise of apartheid. In the drama that unfolds, a tragic misunderstanding leads to a personal vendetta that mirrors the prejudices at the heart of each group’s inability to comprehend the aspirations of the other, culminating in an attempt to assassinate Mandela—with his own gun!

Alix Jans