Richard Kunzmann: September 2009 Archives

Many American writers have the Vietnam War carved deep into their hearts. In South Africa, there was the Angolan War, or the Border War as it is known to my father's generation. White South African teenagers, some as young as sixteen, were conscripted to fight a war against black communists supposedly threatening the last bastion of democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some of the soldiers endured the loss of close friends. Others saw the horrible effects of war. Then there were the police's covert counter-terrorism units that operated outside of the conventions of war, units that would later emerge as some of the worst perpetrators of apartheid's atrocities.

Piet Steyn's newest novel, Bottelnek is the story of Joe Smit, scarred and damaged by his time on the border. As a bloody sun separates itself from a sticky mine dump horizon, he kicks down the door to his bedroom and fires twice, killing two lovers, before setting off north to finally face the demons that have plagued him all these years.