Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane (The Best Tennis Story I Know)

Note on Kaffir Boy: “Kaffir” is now classified as hate speech. The K-word in South Africa is roughly equivalent to the N-word in America. Kaffir Boy, which won a Christopher Award for inspiring hope, has been one of the most popular books in America’s public schools since its publication in 1987, despite nationwide efforts to ban it as “pornography.” Teachers use it to primarily inspire students, especially from marginalized communities, to never give up on their dreams, despite the obstacles in their way.

Kaffir Boy

Apartheid means separation. Separation means hate. Kaffir boy lives in an all-black ghetto of 1 square mile, 200,000 people. No running water, electricity or paved roads. You had to put up with so much shit no outsider would believe it. Mother hides in a ditch most mornings. Never know when the police might come. You need a pass for a family to live together. You need a pass to work. You need a pass to flit like a servile, unseen ghost anywhere in the white man’s world. Authorities dole out passes in unfathomable ways. Wait forever in line on multiple days with multiple papers in hand, never knowing if you have the right ones. If you can’t get a pass to work, you can be arrested for being unemployed.

When Arthur Ashe plays a tournament in South Africa, he tells white men what he thinks and believes without apology. If Arthur Ashe had been black in South Africa, he would have hanged himself in prison. That’s what Kaffir Boy tells a friend.  Black activists often hung themselves in prison using shoelaces. That’s what the authorities said. Kaffir boy and his friend agree: we call it cold-blooded murder.

Kaffir Boy falls in love with books. Kaffir Boy falls in love with tennis. Somehow he hits hits tennis balls with (1972 U.S. and Wimbledon champion) Stan Smith, who helps him get a tennis scholarship to America. While in college, Mark Mathabane writes Kaffir Boy, the story of his life growing up in South Africa under apartheid. Kaffir Boy becomes a best-seller. It’s the best book I know about apartheid. Not sure I know a better tennis story.   

Mark on Tennis: Tennis literally saved my life. It was the catalyst for the tough choices I had to make enroute to coming to America: to defy gangs, to focus on school despite the Dickensian conditions of black education, to learn English, my 5th language, and stop hating white people for apartheid and judge them as individuals, by their deeds. This led to books and tennis and eventually to meeting Stan. Finally, what tennis empowered me to achieve is nothing short of miraculous. I was able, in one generation, to go from sleeping on pieces of cardboard in a shack without running water or electricity, hunting for food at garbage dumps, and being dragged to school by my illiterate mother to save me from the dead-end life of gangs as the first of her seven children – to graduating with honors from an American college, writing several books, including two bestsellers, serving as a White House Fellow in 1996, bringing the rest of my family to America and educating my six siblings, and seeing my three children, who were inspired by the Kaffir Boy’s story, all graduate from Princeton.

Mark on Alexandra (aka Alex): Alex is only ten miles from Kempton Park, where Roger Federer’s mom grew up.  Nelson Mandela, a tennis player and fan who keenly followed Ashe’s exploits (while serving life imprisoned on Robben Island), lived in Alex in 1940, several blocks from the shack where I was born. In Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela fondly reminisces about the residents’ sense of community despite being mired in desperate poverty. Sadly, that poverty hasn’t been alleviated, despite Alexandra’s key role in the liberation struggle and cultural history of the country and Southern Africa. You may want to check out its Wikipedia list of Notable Residents, which includes the poet Wally Serote , jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, Samora Machel, the first president of an Independent Mozambique, and Hastings Banda, President of Malawi.

You can purchase or listen to Kaffir Boy here on Amazon.

You can learn more about the New York Times bestselling author Mark Mathabane on his Website, where you can also purchase his books. (His website is down at the moment, so please purchase his books on Amazon.) Mark is also a motivational speaker. He recently spoke at the National Press Club in Washington DC on November 6, 2023 in honor the 50th anniversary of Ashe’s historic visit to South Africa in 1973. His topic was how Ashe was the first free black man he had ever seen as a 13 year old, and how his visit inspired Mark to make the tough choices which eventually saved his life. He can be reached at Mark@mathabane.net. 

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