Bryce Courtenay

When I was 17 and had just gone away to university for the first time, a group of us were sitting in the common room talking about favourite books. one of the guys there said "I have only read one book right to the end and I will never read another because that one was so good". The book he was talking about was "The Power of One' by Bryce Courtenay. It wasn't until a few years later that I found myself reading it, from the moment I finished the first chapter I knew what he was talking about. I fell in love with Peekay and his story and make sure that I read both "The Power of One" and it's sequel "Tandia" at least once a year.

"The Power Of One" is set in the heart of a South Africa which is just beginning to formalise apartheid and prepare for the outbreak of the second world war. We meet our hero at the very start of his life which revolves around his Grandpa and African nanny. His world changes when he is sent at an early age to an Afrikaans boarding school and immediately bullied for being "English".