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to come across the gang, increasingly short. Violence
is a survival mechanism, not in terms purely of day to
day physical survival, but rather as a means of stability
and affirmation.
Life is a straight line, for Tsotsi, with no memory or
past, just the present, “one continuous moment carrying
him forward without questions or regrets…” However,
this changes when he finds a baby boy in a shoebox,
though Fugard avoids making this dynamic overly trite
or sugar-coated. He is not miraculously transformed by
the heart-tugging power of the baby and its burbling, in
fact he is troubled by the fact he doesn’t just kill the child.
The turning point comes from the child’s vulnerability,
and its lack of history. This catalyses a shower of
fragments of memory from the past which pierce the
cold, hermetically sealed darkness in which he resides,
sending him into a psychological turmoil. Even though
this turns his world upside down – as the past creeps
into the present, and his backstory is filled in – his sociopathic
tendencies are partially eroded. The flood of
emotions, of sympathy and the ability to connect with
other people, start to diminish his fatalistic nihilism. A
world of new alternatives is born in its place.
BUY Athol Fugard books online from and
With Tsotsi Fugard has crafted an intelligent and insightful
novel. One which humanizes brutality, exposes
the corruptability of humans, and conversely presents
the possibilities for redemption, not in a biblical sense
but in the more down-to-earth manner in which individuals
can take an opportunity to change their life for
the better. While the book reflects a particularly bloody
time in South Africa’s history, it is not a gratuitous offering.
Acts of sex and violence are not described in
explicit detail, instead the writer zones in on the characters
and causal factors.
Perhaps this comes in part from Fugard’s work as
a playwright – he has written some 30 odd plays and
won numerous awards – an industry where special
effects are sparse and context is ever present. At times
Fugard is repetitive with his use of descriptions and
metaphors, and some of the characters are a little twodimensional,
shoring up aspects of the storyline, rather
than emanating their own complexities. Nevertheless,
none of this detracts from novel’s narrative power or
emotional impact.
The film adaptation of Tsotsi won the Best Foreign
Language Film at this 2006 Oscars. �
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