Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred... until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin's parents are left dead and Beauty's daughter goes missing.

After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection.

Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum If You Don't Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.

• We started tracking this book on December 31, 2017.
• This book was £9.61 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 77 times in the past 2,489 days.
• The current price of this book is £2.99 last checked 20 hours ago.
• The lowest price to date was £2.99 last reached on October 1, 2024.
• This book has been £2.99 5 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was £10.99 last reached on August 4, 2019.
• This book has been £10.99 3 times since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• Literature & FictionLiterary FictionSagas
• Literature & FictionLiterary FictionHistorical
• Literature & FictionGenre FictionComing of Age

• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 428 Pages
• File Size: 2,802 KB