Familiarity is the Kingdom of the Lost or Tshotsholoza, Dugmore Boetie, edited by Vusumuzi R. Kumalo and Benjamin N. Lawrance

Abstract

Reviewed by: Familiarity Is the Kingdom of the Lost or Tshotsholoza by Dugmore Boetie Riti Sharma BOOK REVIEW of Boetie, Dugmore. 2020. Familiarity Is the Kingdom of the Lost or Tshotsholoza. Edited by Vusumuzi R. Kumalo and Benjamin N. Lawrance. With an introduction by Benjamin N. Lawrance and Vusumuzi R. Kumalo, foreword by Nadine Gordimer, and afterword by Barney Simon. Athens: Ohio University Press. 187 pp. $24.95 (paper). In this novel, the word tshotsholoza, meaning "go forward," is the title of a South African song, sung by prisoners. Familiarity Is the Kingdom of the Lost is like a requiem for this song, as the protagonist is usually found amid acts that will help him go to a place he calls home. The heart of the text lies in the concept of home—its location and its history. Dugmore Boetie is a conman who serves time in South African prisons. Half his narrative is like a prison diary; the rest is paced like a thriller, incorporating elements of the satirical and the sentimental. It is in the style of a bildungsroman, which tells the tale of a boy in a world busy segregating human beings. The trials and twists in his life hinge on the fact that he has survived many years of racial prejudice and cultural hatred, but his job description makes life worse for him. Learning to be a conman when one is a Black South African in apartheid South Africa means flirting with death. Not just the crime, but being a criminal means having to carry this identity for the rest of one's life. But for Boetie, battling the so-called pass laws is a rite of passage. His nerves, brain, and just plain bad luck get him into and out of complicated predicaments. He comes to the reader as a runaway child who has dabbled in petty crimes. As an adult, he wants to escape the state-mandated social services, but he goes back to them when he needs work, unemployable on account of being physically disabled. "If you were black, you'd see life. If you were white, life would see you" (14). It would be betraying Boetie to say his story is summed up in these words, but they are evidence of his perspective on life. Whether he joins a gang, serves a prison sentence, sells marijuana, becomes a musician, or tries to be an honest husband, his skin color both makes him face extenuating circumstances and permits him to create a new sense of identity. The law in [End Page 141] South Africa works differently for Blacks and Coloreds, and Boetie is a man who understands its nuances. All the importance of identity comes to the final point: how does a person survive? His stories may seem like an act of lying, but autobiographies are not always whole truths. Boetie's contribution to the landscape of South African literature is through his method of telling, a testament to the oral tradition. Only a phenomenal storyteller can come up with phrases like "ox-cart-wide alleys." That is how people remember Boetie—as a musician and a storyteller. Boetie's friendship with other conmen opens a world of possibilities in understanding how crime and society function as partners. Without the one, the other is impossible. Boetie's life as a musician coincides with the time he starts living away from crime, but even in today's world, being a musician is hard. He uses phrases like "three quaver knocks" (25); in the afterword, Barney Simon admits to having met people at the hospital where Boetie was, who recognized him as the one who sang and regaled them with stories. One comes back to the song Tshotsholoza, which Boetie heard being sung by other inmates in prison. Boetie likens the song to an orphaned child, as nobody knows its origins. His book tells the tale of a similar boy—who could not claim an identity and whom nobody would come to claim as their own. When Boetie talks about joining the army, one comes face-to-face with the irony of being a Black person in South Africa. When things like cracking a joke...