SOURCE: Howe, Stephen. “Africa Dreaming.” New Statesman 128, no. 4422 (5 February 1999): 48-9.

In the following review, Howe examines the parallels between The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness and Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull.

South Africa and Nigeria are, actually or potentially, the twin giants of the African continent, even if their appallingly bloody recent histories threw up seemingly impassable barriers against a more hopeful future. South Africa seems to have come through those barriers, in a transformation that is routinely, and not foolishly, called miraculous—though it would indeed be foolish to understate its fragility or ambiguity. Nigeria, still under military rule after several failed or deliberately aborted transitions to democracy, has its future hanging in the balance.

A key element, perhaps the most truly magical one, in South Africa's “miracle” has been the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu...