District Six
The novel traces close community of District Six through its moments of triumph and despair, its loves, its hatreds- and its bizarre characters. In 1966 parts of District Six were declared for white occupation only, in terms of South Africa's notorious Group Areas Act. The inhabitants were forced to leave for the bleak wastelands of the Cape Flats.
The book describes the author's childhood in Cape Town's notorious slum, District Six, and then traces his academic and literary careers. The former gathered momentum after he won a competitive scholarship to high school at the age of thirteen and continued until he had earned degrees from the universities of Cape Town and Columbia.
Compilation of Richard Rive short stories:African SongDistrict Six - Moon Over District Six; Rain; Willie-boyStrike, May 1961 - Strike; Drive In; Dawn RaidBlack, White and Brown - The Bench; The Return; Street Corner; Resurrection; No Room at Solitaire
"District Six was an area of Cape Town that was inhabited by poor people of different racial backgrounds, but particularly Coloureds and Malays, until the 1960s. This novel tells the story over 15 years of a group of people who lived in a row of houses called Buckingham Palace. Slowly their lives become affected by the Group Areas Act, which designated District Six as a white-only district. Buckingham Palace, District Six shows the heavy price individuals and communities had to pay under the apartheid regime of South Africa."--Page 4 of cover.