Janet Levine
Anti-Apartheid Activist Reveals Reality of Living Under the Specter of an Authoritarian Iron Fist
Journalist, bestselling author, and anti-apartheid activist Janet Levine lived under an autocratic, racist, Christian National government from her childhood into her adulthood, and throughout her 30 years of anti-apartheid activism.
“Living in a dictatorial police state affects every part of your life,” Levine said. “No one perceived as an enemy of the state is exempt.”
Levine draws on her life experiences to bring the chilling realities of living under apartheid’s rule to life through a passionately envisaged saga, Liv’s Secrets. As shown through the eyes of three powerful women in a South African Jewish family, Liv’s Secrets is a masterful blend of key historical figures, South African culture, and captivating characters that immerses readers in the lives of a family of immigrants who risk everything to help end apartheid.
Liv’s Secrets weaves the stories of three generations of the Weisz family, one among a great wave of Jewish immigrants in the latter part of the 19th century. While most washed up in America, a wavelet of Lithuanian Jews, like the Weiszes, landed on South Africa’s shores.
Noteworthy historical figures, including Alan Paton and Helen Suzman, interact with Levine’s compelling characters amid the background of South Africa’s racial turmoil and apartheid’s authoritarian iron fist. Not least of the characters is South Africa itself —a landscape of astonishing beauty and nature’s abundant flora and fauna.
As decades pass, readers witness the drama-romance, first loves, lust, betrayal, true love, despair and elation, cruelty and evil, and hope and fulfillment of generations of Weisz family members. Always in the background is the chilling reality of World Wars and escalating racial tensions within South Africa that culminate in the bloody Sharpeville Massacre in March 1960, and its aftermath.
From 1960, the saga pivots on the third generation, embodied by Liv Weisz. Five years earlier, a recent divorcee, passionate and headstrong, she heeds the call to become part of the resistance to the authoritarian white apartheid government. And pays an unimaginable price with resounding consequences for many characters, as the country itself undergoes seismic, racially evoked challenges.
Liv’s Secrets is available in several formats as well as an audiobook powerfully narrated by jazz singer and actress Jerzy Jung.
For more information, visit www.janetlevine.com, or follow the author on LinkedIn (Janet Levine).