books

Description

Melanie Coetzee’s deeply affecting The Evangelist takes us through the landscapes of the Northern Cape, South Africa, and the life story of christian visionary André Coetzee. Born in 1935 into the mixed-race or "coloured" minority, this fascinating man of faith spoke for millions of South Africans grappling with a hardening apartheid system. Melanie Coetzee’s first book is an inspired achievement in both prose and political history. She sheds new light on the life and times of a charismatic man who experienced “miraculous healing from God” and went on to preach its wonder to millions. Along the way, she also illuminates for us intimate aspects of the oft-misunderstood position of the coloured people under the apartheid regime. This debut work of biography, written with keen attention to historical details and fond admiration for its subject, also includes rare and archival pictures and testimonies. Melanie Coetzee lives with her husband, a son of André Coetzee, in Cape Town where she works at the historic Red Cross War Children’s Memorial Hospital.