'Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse' - such was the creed of the young blacks of honky-tonk Sophiatown and District Six during the 1950s. Drum, an illustrated magazine written by a group of legendary black writers, was the microcosm of this world. Surveying the townships - the gangsters, jazzmen, beauty queens, folk heroes and illegal dagga dens - in highly charged prose, these writers also exposed the bloody realities of apartheid while charting the growing resistance movement.
In Drum and in the lives of these men, this book records the reality and dichotomy of living in township South Africa - the hopes, the fears, the dreams and defiance of a vibrant, laughing, deadly world.
'A Good-Looking Corpse... examines the Drum phenomenon with intelligence, insight and wit: a fitting tribute to a remarkable magazine' - Guardian
In Drum and in the lives of these men, this book records the reality and dichotomy of living in township South Africa - the hopes, the fears, the dreams and defiance of a vibrant, laughing, deadly world.
'A Good-Looking Corpse... examines the Drum phenomenon with intelligence, insight and wit: a fitting tribute to a remarkable magazine' - Guardian
Used availability for Mike Nicol's A Good-looking Corpse