This book is an elegy to a beloved political party and a failing, if not failed state. Mathews Phosa is devastating in his truthfulness, and stunning in his attempt to be generous to friend and foe alike.

To bring her children up and to provide them with as much supplementary home-schooling support as she could, Reshoketjoe Phosa, Mathews Phosa's mother, indefinitely postponed the start of her own career as a professional nurse.

She was a natural-born entrepreneur, a biscuit vendor and a maker and seller of ladies' hats as well as a prize-winning retailer of a popular brand of pyjamas. His father, Paul Phosa, was a teacher, principal and a serial builder of schools in many villages scattered around Nelspruit. This thanks to his artisan training in carpentry, building and plumbing, as well as his training as a teacher.

When Mathews Phosa was of school-going age, his parents sent him back to their own roots -- a farm called Polen near Mokopane -- where he was raised by his grandfather Mathews Phosa Senior, after whom he was named.

Grandpa Phosa was a devout Christian and a strict disciplinarian who was determined to shelter, cushion and shield his grandson from the...