No More Strangers Now : Young Voices from a New South Africa

Interviews by Tim McKee
Photographs by Anne Blackshaw
Foreward by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Through powerful personal narratives and photographs, this remarkable book brings together twelve South African teenagers whose distinct voices illuminate their experiences under apartheid and the joyous yet challenging years of freedom since.

In their own words, these teens reveal what it was like to grow up in a country bitterly divided by racial separation, violence, and poverty. Eighteen-year-old Bandile Mashinini tells of police breaking down his door night after night because of his family’s outspoken resistance to apartheid. Sixteen-year-old Ricardo Thando Tollie speaks of living in a tin shack only a few miles from the elegant houses of white suburbs. And fifteen-year-old Lesandra Jansen van Vuuren describes her isolated childhood as a white South African, taught to fear and mistrust people with skin darker than her own.

But here, too, are stories of hope; of a willingness to reach out, to forgive, and to heal. Although they speak with a diverse range of voices, experiences, and attitudes, these young people are united in the belief that the new South Africa will truly be different from the one they have known. Their lives stand testament to the power and resilience of the human spirit and to a country’s ability to redefine itself.

Ages 10 and Up

ORDER: Hardcover