Author's experience in South Africa shapes her new novel

Police used violence to suppress the campaign of black South Africans for equal rights with whites. (Image: Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty)

The Washington Post

Sun, 16 Feb 2025

By Sophia NguyenLauren Francis-Sharma’s new novel opens on an unsettling note, as a police officer nurses his injuries from the day’s work – “The American girl had done some real damage,” he thinks – and then finds that his car tyres have been slashed.The events that trigger that act of vandalism, and the violence unleashed afterward, are the engine of Casualties of Truth. It draws on the author’s first-hand experience in South Africa, observing hearings held by the Truth and Reconciliation Commiss...

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