Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa

Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa (1998) is a work of narrative nonfiction by Antjie Krog originally published in South Africa. This guide refers to the American edition of the text (1999) that includes an epilogue, glossary, Cast of Characters, and introduction not included in the South African edition, as well as the addition of the subtitle. Krog, an Afrikaner poet-turned-journalist who covered the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a member of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, uses a mix of first-person testimony, poetry, philosophy, historical context, psychology, and fiction to convey a sense of the period between the formation of the TRC and its conclusion. Country of My Skull has received wide acclaim outside of South Africa—being adapted loosely into a generally poorly reviewed 2004 film—but reception in South Africa has been more mixed.  

Krog divides Country of My Skull into five parts: “Before the Commission,” “First Hearings,” “Politics,” “Reactions,” and “Unwinding.” The text follows a loose chronological structure moving from the formation of the TRC to its conclusion, but frequently includes conversations and events whose chronology is unclear, as is their veracity. The first-person narrator of the text, while nominally Krog herself, is a nebulous figure, sometimes going by variations of Krog’s name, sometimes with no name, leaving ambiguous who is participating in some of the conversations depicted.

“Before the Commission” generally addresses the period immediately prior to the TRC’s formation, exposing the racism still very much present in South Africa at the time and laying out objections to the TRC’s purpose.

“First Hearings,” while presented as verbatim quotes and transcripts, is a paraphrased patchwork of testimonies from victims and perpetrators both black and white. Krog gives the most textual real estate in this section to black victims who didn’t have a voice during the apartheid period. Race and racism play a significant role in this section, as does trauma. Krog’s narrator avatar begins her wrestling with her identity in this section as well, as a direct response to covering testimony by Afrikaner perpetrators. Her confrontations of her own identity cause her to focus on gender disparity as well, in an effort to understand how she as an Afrikaner woman might be different than the Afrikaner men who committed human rights abuses.

In “Politics,” Krog focuses on political parties and individual politicians, and their reactions to the TRC. Krog’s disdain for foreign journalists appears frequently throughout this section, as they arrive for the spectacle of political accountability but care little to nothing for the actual victims. Both the National Party (NP)—the Afrikaner party responsible for apartheid—and the African National Congress (ANC)—the black party to which Mandela and his government belong—resist the TRC process. The NP demonizes it and does not want to its judgment; the ANC denies that any violence it committed in the struggle against apartheid reflects human rights violations because it fought for a just cause.

In “Reactions,” Krog’s focus starts to diverge as she covers more ground, addressing her own internal struggles, reactions from the public to her reports, further testimony from victims of different backgrounds, discussions of gender and sexual violence, and worries about Archbishop Tutu’s health. Reactions also contains heavy focus on trauma as a concept and experience, with discussion from psychologists and the manifestation of physical and emotional symptoms in Krog, her fellow journalists, and the Commissioners.

“Unwinding” is Country of My Skull’s least cohesive section. As the title suggests, these chapters serve as an “unwinding” of everything that has happened, in an attempt to process the information and move forward. There are scandals within the TRC, high-profile hearings of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and P.W. Botha, and explorations of the nature and purpose of art in response to tragedy. Krog wonders how the country can move forward, but has faith that it will.

The Epilogue, written a year after the text’s original publication, addresses the publishing of the TRC’s final report and the controversy surrounding it. Krog observes that her country is more divided than ever, but again, expresses hope that things will improve in the future thanks to the work done by the TRC.