The Power of One carried with it by way of recommendation a reputation for being inspirational, for living up to its title and theme of the absolute power of the individual to impact the world and those around them. And it frequently does that through a uniquely unvarnished tale of a young boy's tortured boarding school upbringing in South Africa amidst the cruel political, ethnic and racial divisions there in the post-Boer War, early WWII era that it inhabits. The violence is immediate and disturbing, the protagonist's rise to prominence both inspiring and occasionally fantastical. The racism depicted is brutal, cruel and disturbing; the narrator's (or could it be the author's?) occasional unintended racism, in perpetuating notions of assumed intellectual inferiority and servility amongst the black South African people, can be somewhat horrifying as well. ~ Reviewed by Jon Fine
