Mafeking Road

Praise

“The pacing and perspective of Bosman’s tales . . . are unlike anything else in English. The closest comparison may be Robert Frost poems or Bob Dylan songs.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Herman Charles Bosman’s prose is easy as breathing and light as breath itself, perfectly suited for capturing those small, precious, otherwise fleeting moments in which gathered hope, colliding with given fact, defines, in a series of small steps, how we come to look upon life.”
—Lee Stringer

“A subtle and simple treatment of deep reflections . . . A classic set of stories, deserving of world attention to match the attention it already receives in Bosman’s home country.”
—David Lahti

“Read these stories for the O. Henry-style socko punchlines, for their atmosphere, for the history, read them simply because they’re wonderful, entertaining, and humane stories where to weep is to laugh, read them because they make a mostly forgotten world live, but read them. These stories are beautiful fruit from a difficult, problematic, worn and wise, humorous and tragic landscape.”
—Catherine Bohne

“The stories in Mafeking Road move between comedy and tragedy, often several times within the same story, and they detail loves lost, or lovers lost, or tragicomic encounters with the British, or family dramas, but each of the stories is masterfully executed and wonderfully written, and achieves its effects almost magically.”
—E.J. Van Lanen