Richard Poplak grew up in the final years of APartheid in South Africa, and he wrote book about it.

The book is precisely what you would expect from such an undertaking: It is personal, a youth-biography collecting all the scraps of memory from birth to age 16 when his family emmigrated to Canada. He claims to have checked and double-checked his facts in interviews and trips to the places of his youth - this sounds credible, at least to a hobby-SouthAfricanist everything sounds true and cohesive.

The book is not really a political text in that it does not claim to examine or even explain the general principles and convictions at work, it really focuses on personal experiences. The reader must fit these experiences in the bigger picture in whatever way he or she deems appropriate. The book is not really anti-apartheid, but that is precisely what makes it convincing and gives us an insight into how adolescent profiteers of Apartheid who couldn't care less about politics have felt.

If you're just looking for a good read, this book is not for you - it is quite a light read, but certainly not as hilarious as the blurb suggests.

If you're looking for a scientific treatise on South African history, this book is not for you either.

If, however, you want to get a glimpse of how Apartheid worked in everyday white (!) lives, if you want some material to think about the ethical implications of profiting from unjustice you never were active part of - than this is the book for you.