The Power Of One (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 1989; vuoden 1994 painos)

Set in South Africa during WWII and the years following it, this is a coming-of-age story that is filled with a terrific cast of characters. Courtenay is a great story teller. I found the book very hard to put down and it was also interesting to learn more about the tense relationships among the various factions in South Africa in that time period. ( )

A great coming-of-age story. Peekay is a young, white, British boy that has many challenges while growing up in South Africa. He has important friends that help him to overcome the odds of his circumstances. Hoppie, Doc, and Geel Piet are characters perfectly fit into Peekay's life. Masterful storytelling that takes the reader on an emotional journey. ( )

"First with the head and then with the heart. Without both, I'm telling you, plans are useless!"

"In this world are few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for a man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand."

"The searcher after truth must search with humanity- Ruthless logic us the sign of a limited mind. The truth can only add to the sum of what you know.."

"In teaching me independence of thought they had given me the greatest gift an adult can give to a child, besides love, and they had given me that also."

"The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself, often well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated."

"I was a man now, I was through with taking. I felt the rest was up to me. If I didn't know what the next step in my life was to be, I felt that I might set it in motion by acting independently of the help that was always so generously extended to me by others."

"No more emotional handouts for me. I could pay my own way! My whole life had been a testament to using the human resources around me, to winning against odds. If I understood the system as I felt I did, I was no longer willing to pay the emotional price it demanded from me."

I related to the protagonist, Peekay, so viscerally. What a raw experience. This is why we read fiction. In sweeping strokes, we deeply understood life. ( )

I was so completely and thoroughly enamoured of this when I first read it in my early teens. I'm not so sure it would hold up quite as well if I re-read it, but I probably never will! ( )