Tsk-Tsk: The story of a child at large

Tsk-Tsk: The story of a child at large
ISBN-10
1868428737
ISBN-13
9781868428731
Category
Biography & Autobiography
Pages
264
Language
English
Published
2018-04-16
Publisher
Jonathan Ball Publishers
Author
Suzan Hackney

Description

'I was made in Coffee Bay. Right there on the beach, in the sand.' From the opening lines, we are drawn in and engrossed by this startling memoir of a singular childhood. Suzan is adopted as a newborn in the late 1960s into a seemingly loving and welcoming family living in Pietermaritzburg. But Suzan is set on a collision course with, most particularly, her adoptive mother, and society, from her very beginning. Suzan's relationship with her mother is fraught with drama, which veers over into a level of emotional abuse and needless cruelty that is shocking. At the age of thirteen, Suzan is sent to a place of safety as a ward of the state, effectively 'orphaning' her. From there, she spirals out of control – fighting to survive in a world of other neglected, abandoned and abused children. She becomes a 'runner', escaping at every opportunity from her various places of confinement, grabbing her schooling in snatches, living on the edges of a drug and prostitution underworld, finding love wherever she can. Suzan’s young life was the stuff of movies, but it is her writing, in a voice that is unforgettable and true, that transforms her memories into something magical rarely matched in South African literature. A new classic.

Get the book

Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Search the book
eBay.com
eBay.com
Search the book

Similar books