Mine boy by John Abraham

Though Mine Boy was published two years before the first official apartheid law was enacted, the novel depicts the racial separation that would be increased during the apartheid era. The illegal beer selling Leah engages in results from a law that made it legal for white people to sell alcohol but prohibited black people from the business. The areas the characters live in and walk through are also divided by income, which, as far as Xuma can see, corresponds to race. Xuma also reflects on how white people have clean, open restaurants while black people are packed into filthy, confined eating halls. The socially enforced separation of society into black and white public spheres was legally entrenched in 1948 when the minority white ruling party adopted apartheid as an official policy.