Author : Herman Lategan
Publisher : Penguin Random House South Africa
ISBN 13 : 177639125X
Total Pages : 262 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (763 download)
Book Synopsis Son of a Whore by : Herman Lategan
Download or read book Son of a Whore written by Herman Lategan and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2023-10-03 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the runaway success of his Afrikaans memoir, Hoerkind, the contrarian journalist and writer Herman Lategan translated and updated his eventful life story, with no holds barred. Herman was conceived illegitimately one warm February night in 1964 in a boarding house in Cape Town. From an early age, he felt disposable, passed from one pair of unstable adult hands to the next, even ending up in an orphanage for a while. At thirteen he was caught in the web of a cunning paedophile, a well-known Afrikaans newspaperman. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday, when his abuser finished with him, Herman was unceremoniously dumped at the door of his alcoholic father. Conscription into the army and a dishonourable discharge followed. During his teenage years, Herman befriended Afrikaans poets like Sheila Cussons, Ina Rousseau, Barend J. Toerien and Casper Schmidt, and later, in New York, he followed Andy Warhol in the street and partied with a ‘smorgasbord of social butterflies’. Back in South Africa, Herman established himself as a journalist, but struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, and was homeless for a while. For many an employer, he became the nightmare they feared most. Son of a Whore is a gripping account of loss, hardship and overcoming both; it will make you laugh and, at times, break your heart. You will despair at the cruelty of a world in which the marginalised are forsaken but stand in awe at the extent of goodness surrounding us, because, ultimately, people depend on each other.