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  • The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay book cover
  • The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay book cover
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The Power of One

by Bryce Courtenay

A boy’s coming of age amid apartheid’s beginnings

$11.53 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A boy’s coming of age amid apartheid’s beginnings

Set in South Africa in 1939, the novel places Peekay’s childhood within a society where racial hatred and apartheid are taking shape. Humiliation and abandonment mark his early years, while his ambition to become a world welterweight champion gives him a goal to pursue. The description also points to words and their capacity to transform lives as a central thread in his journey, alongside a sustaining sense of the “power of one.” Personal ambition and the forces shaping a divided society meet in a story framed around endurance, language, and the possibility of individual influence.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Teens and young adults interested in historical fiction set in South Africa.
  • Readers seeking a coming-of-age story about perseverance and ambition.
  • Readers interested in fiction engaging with apartheid, racial hatred, and the influence of language.

Themes

Coming of ageApartheid and racial hatredPerseverance and ambitionLanguage and individual influence

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

In 1939, hatred took root in South Africa, where the seeds of apartheid were newly sown. There a boy called Peekay was born. He spoke the wrong language-English. He was nursed by a woman of the wrong color-black. His childhood was marked by humiliation and abandonment. Yet he vowed to survive-he would become welterweight champion of the world, he would dream heroic dreams.
But his dreams were nothing compared to what awaited him. For he embarked on an epic journey, where he would learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the mystical power that would sustain him even when it appeared that villainy would rule the world: The Power of One.
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