Mine Boy

Set in 1940s Johannesburg, South Africa, the novel follows Xuma, a large, penniless man from the rural north who arrives in Malay Camp, a crowded and impoverished neighborhood, at three in the morning. He encounters Leah, a formidable woman who runs an illegal beer-selling operation known as a shebeen. After inspecting him by torchlight, Leah takes him in and introduces him to her household: Daddy, a perpetually drunk elderly man; Ma Plank, an old woman who helps run the house; and Dladla, a young, knife-wielding man who serves as Leah's casual lover. Leah reveals that her man is in prison and offers Xuma work as her strongman, but he declines, saying he intends to work in the mines. Leah warns him the mines destroy men's health but accepts his decision.

The next day, Xuma witnesses the vibrant chaos of Saturday life in Malay Camp: street fights, gambling, and flashily dressed young men called swankies. Daddy tells an allegorical story about how "the city" visited "the custom," accepted its hospitality, then stole everything, leaving the people punished for their own traditions. When a police van arrives, Joseph, the brother of Leah's imprisoned man, urges Xuma to run, but Xuma stands his ground until a policeman strikes him. Xuma punches the officer unconscious and flees with help from a coloured man, a term that in South Africa designates a distinct mixed-race community.

That evening, Xuma meets Eliza, Leah's niece, a schoolteacher whom Leah raised after Eliza's mother died. Xuma is captivated by her beauty. They walk to a quiet spot where Xuma sees the towering mine dumps for the first time: mountains of white sand, the waste dug from underground in the search for gold. He tries to kiss Eliza, but she stiffens and pushes him away. Later, during a beer-selling party, Dladla slashes Xuma's face. Leah disarms Dladla in a brutal struggle. Johannes, a huge mine worker, arrives and helps subdue Dladla's accomplices. That night, Eliza comes to Xuma's room and they share a passionate kiss, but when he presses further she shouts "No!" (84) and flees. She returns to confess the conflict tearing her apart: She wants to live like white people, to go where they go and do what they do, and this impossible desire makes her hurt everyone around her.

On Monday, Johannes walks Xuma to the mines. They watch a column of compound workers, men housed in enclosed barracks, marching to the gates flanked by indunas (mine policemen) carrying knobkerries (heavy clubs). Chris, Johannes' white boss, arranges for Xuma to start work. A hostile overseer named Smid assigns Xuma a punishing task meant for two men, but Paddy, an Irish mine boss called the Red One for his red hair, claims Xuma as his boss boy, or gang leader, and warns Smid against mistreating him. Xuma spends the day pushing trucks of sand to build mine dumps that never seem to grow. The futility terrifies him more than the noise and explosions. Paddy tells Xuma bluntly what is expected: He must lead, fight lazy workers, and learn fast. Paddy gives him money and tells him never to call him "baas" (boss).

Back at Leah's, Xuma meets Maisy, a lively young woman born in the city. She persuades him to join a communal street-corner dance, and Xuma feels happy for the first time since arriving. But Eliza comes to his room again that night and rejects him the next morning. After this, Xuma avoids Leah's household for over two months. Three months into city life, he has established himself as a respected boss boy; underground is the only place he feels free. One Saturday, Paddy insists Xuma come to his flat for dinner. There Xuma sees the comfortable world of white people: carpets, books, a radio, wine. He thinks, "Now I understand what Eliza wants." Paddy's girlfriend Di insists that she and Eliza are "the same inside" (94), a white girl and a Black girl wanting identical things. Later that night, Dr. Mini, a Black doctor, treats an injured man. At the doctor's home, Xuma finds furnishings as fine as any white person's. The doctor tells him that living comfortably is not copying the white man but simply living as any person should.

Xuma returns to Leah's after months away. Ma Plank reveals that Daddy was once a powerful, literate leader who organized protests against the pass laws, which required Black South Africans to carry documents restricting their movement. But Daddy "understood too much," and the understanding destroyed him, driving him to drink just as a similar awareness torments Eliza. That night, Eliza comes to Xuma's bed, and they make love. She tells him she is his woman. In the days that follow, they reunite openly, and Leah gives them furniture and formally places Eliza in Xuma's care. Dladla, who has been boasting about betraying Leah to the police, is found stabbed to death. The killer is never identified.

For five days, Xuma and Eliza live in quiet happiness. Then Daddy is struck by a car and dies, his eyes clearing in his final moments to reveal the wise man Ma Plank described. Leah does not cry; instead she throws a wild party and furiously chases away anyone who mentions Daddy. Shortly after, Eliza leads Xuma to a hilltop overlooking Johannesburg, staring at the city with hunger and at the road leading away. The next morning, she is gone. Ma Plank explains that Eliza has left on a long train journey and will not return. She loves Xuma but cannot overcome the restless wanting inside her. Xuma sits for hours in numb stillness. Leah berates him for his passivity, then, alone, weeps silently and presses a faded photograph of Eliza to her chest.

Maisy confesses her long, painful love for Xuma. That same night, a detective called The Fox traps Leah by feeding false information to her informant so that Leah digs up her buried beer on the night she believes is safe. Leah faces arrest with composure and a defiant laugh, and is later sentenced to nine months. In the predawn quiet after a night shift, Paddy challenges Xuma: He must think as a man first, then as a Black man, because when people think only in terms of color, they do harm. Xuma erupts, insisting a white man cannot truly understand Black suffering. Walking home, Xuma imagines a world without color and finds the vision intoxicating, but waking reality makes it unbearable.

When Xuma arrives for his next shift, a collapse has killed Johannes and Chris, who held up a weakened tunnel with their bodies so others could escape. Engineers blame rotten beams at the very spot Xuma and Paddy had warned about and callously attribute the deaths to panic. Paddy punches the engineer. When the manager orders the night shift underground, Xuma refuses, declaring they are men, not cattle. The mine boys rally behind him. Paddy crosses over to stand with the Black workers. In this moment, Xuma feels sudden clarity: A person can be a man first, without color. Police attack the strikers. Paddy is struck and arrested. Xuma fights off several officers and escapes to Maisy's room, bloodied. He announces he must turn himself in. Paddy is in jail for standing with Black workers, and Xuma cannot live with himself if he runs. He wants to tell the authorities and his own people how Black people truly feel. He tells Maisy he loves her and asks her to wait. She promises. Ma Plank tells him to make Daddy proud. As Xuma and Maisy walk together toward the police station, the lights of Malay Camp go out one by one, and a hush settles over the city.