Emergency, by Richard Rive

Three days in March 1960. That's all it took to change a life. That's all it took to change a country. 

Andrew Dreyer is a young, coloured schoolteacher in Cape Town. After a tragic but relatively sheltered youth, Dreyer's studies at university expose him to the true scale and oppression of the apartheid state. But nothing can prepare him for his plunge into massacre and the declaration of the first state of emergency.

A portrait of a developing political consciousness, Emergency was one of the first books that dealt with the tumult of the Pass law protests and the horrific aftermath of Sharpeville. A tersely -written novel of both historical and social importance. Emergency cements Rive's reputation a a sharp witness to the injustices of apartheid.