Biography of mark mathabane
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Mark Mathabane touched the hearts of millions with his sensational autobiography, Kaffir Boy. Telling the true story of his coming of age under apartheid in South Africa, the book won a prestigious Christopher Award, rose to No. 3 on The New York Times bestsellers list and to No. 1 on the Washington Post bestsellers list, and was translated into several languages. Today, the book is used in classrooms across the U.S. and is on the American Library Association's List of "Outstanding Books for the College-Bound." Born of destitute parents whose $10-a-week wage could not pay the rent for their shack or put food on the table, Mathabane spent the first 18 years of his life as the eldest of seven children in a one-square-mile ghetto that was home to more than 200,000 blacks. A childhood of devastating poverty, terrifying police raids and relentless humiliation drove him to the brink of suicide at age ten. A love of learning and books and his dreams of tennis stardom, inspired by Arthur Ashe, carried him from despair, hate and anger to possibility and hope. His illiterate mother believed that education was the only way out of the ghetto. Her courage and sacrifice turned Mathabane's life around. Mathabane did what no physically and psychologically battered "Ka
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Mark Mathabane
South Mortal author turf educator (born 1960)
Mark Mathabane | |
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| Born | Johannes Mathabane (1960-10-18) 18 October 1960 (age 64) Alexandra, Province, South Africa |
| Nationality | South African |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | Dowling College |
| Occupation(s) | Author have a word with lecturer |
| Known for | Kaffir Boy |
| Spouse | Gail Ernsberger |
| Children | Bianca, Nathan, Stanley |
Mark Mathabane (born Johannes Mathabane, 18 October 1960) is a South Person author, reader, and a former body tennis contestant and college professor.
Early life grind South Africa
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Mathabane, Mark 1960–
Writer
At a Glance…
Creativity Fueled by Tradition
The Path to Education and Opportunity
Made Famous by a Memoir
Called for Improved Race Relations
Selected writings
Sources
Mark Mathabane escaped a life of poverty and terror in South Africa and, recalling that life in print, has become a bestselling author in the United States. Mathabane’s 1986 memoir, Kaffir Boy,“catapulted him to celebrity and respect as a voice for oppressed blacks,” according to Lisa Anderson in the Chicago Tribune. In Kaffir Boy, the author recounts his childhood in the squalid black township of Alexandra and his determination not to accept the boundaries set for him by the white minority government of South Africa. In subsequent books, Kaffir Boy in America and Love in Black and White, Mathabane offers his perspective on race relations—personal and social—in modern America. Los Angeles Times correspondent Itabari Njeri called Mathabane a writer with “an intellect constantly refining itself; a man turning himself into a more astute receptor and generator of ideas.”
As a child, Mathabane saw his parents victimized repeatedly by the barbaric South African system of apartheid. He witnessed violence, suffer