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Holding up the Sky: An African Life (Sandy Blackburn-Wright, Pier 9, $34.95 pb, ISBN 9781921208232, March) ** 1/2

South Africa was a tumultuous place at the end of apartheid. As a community aid worker in the townships, Sydneysider Sandy Blackburn-Wright was uniquely placed to observe the effects and after effects of apartheid and its demise. For 11 years, her role provided the opportunity to educate and help the people recover and rebuild, but also to witness the racism and the injustice that remained after the end of apartheid. Holding up the Sky is her account. At times the book feels more like a rewrite of her diary
and this tends to disengage the reader, as though reading a journal, not an autobiography. Also, while Blackburn-Wright’s descriptions of her personal relationships and involvement in positive aspects of life are somewhat uplifting, the regular mentions of death and destruction (which admittedly were a major part of life there) make it a challenging read. As such, it is difficult to attach to the characters aside from the author herself. The personal aspects of her tale are a welcome distraction from the more
confronting issues that she faced. If you have an interest in stories about African life, race relations and overcoming adversity, you may enjoy this book, but it is not an easy or a comfortable read.

Tristan Blattman is special sales manager at UNSW Bookshop

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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