Mbaqanga Nights tells a unique and layered story, with two distinct yet interconnected narrative threads. The first is the tale of the protagonist’s grandfather, a Jewish man who emigrates from Ukraine to South Africa, and the second is the protagonist’s own story of living in South Africa, where he opens a mixed jazz club during apartheid. The uniqueness of this point of intersection alone deserves praise and makes the story worth reading.

One of my favourite things about this book is how clearly well-researched it is, with a strong historical context that grounds the story. The time jumps between the two narratives, though initially disorienting, ultimately add a nice complexity to the plot. I also appreciated the theme of returning to one’s roots, of finding one’s identity, which gives the story emotional depth as the protagonist reflects on his heritage.

The prose was another strength point for me, with moments of lyrical beauty, especially in more introspective passages.

The story is told from the first-person perspective of the protagonist, a white man who lives in South Africa during apartheid. This is the story the writer chose to tell and it is an absolutely valid one, and his internal conflict of what he should’ve or shouldn’t have done is central to the novel and interestingly executed. However, I did feel that at times the narrative asked the reader to sympathize too much with the struggles of white people who opposed apartheid, as though their opposition somehow made their lives equally difficult. While I did make the effort to understand this internal conflict, it felt to me a bit tone-deaf at times.

The first-person narration also felt a bit awkward when the protagonist recounts his grandfather and great uncle’s travels, as it’s unclear how he would have such detailed knowledge of their experiences.

Overall, Mbaqanga Nights is an ambitious novel with moments of beauty and insight. While in my opinion the handling of the white experience during apartheid could’ve been approached differently, I think the author has done an excellent job at researching and bringing to life a compelling and original story.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Short novel spanning from Jews emigrating from the Ukraine to the jazz scene in South Africa. Rich in historical details and capturing the atmosphere and excitement of the hopping clubs in apartheid era Durban, as well as the travails of young emigrants facing new challenges.

I was browsing for something interesting to read, something different. I came across Leonora Meriel's new novel, Mbaqanga Nights. The title piqued my interest: something musical, something South-African. I'm not well-versed in either South-African history or jazz but I knew enough to want to read this.

Mbaqanga Nights is the tale of Coltrane's, a mixed-race live music bar opened in 1989 when apartheid was still the rule in South Africa. Or rather, it's the tale of all the "layers of truth" that make up Coltrane's and all those who attend its opening night, the starting point of this novel. "No story exists in isolation," says the protagonist, Laurence Philip Jude, and so Meriel takes us on a great adventure that goes back generations, to a village in Cossack Ukraine where the younger Jews are starting to feel the need for hope in an ever more oppressive society at large, taking immense chances to escape elsewhere, anywhere where freedom is more than just a distant dream.

The heartbeat rythm of the mbaqanga music takes readers from 1989 Durban to other places and other times, stumbling across incredible people along the way - from the founder of Hasidism, Israel ben Eliezer, to music legends Darius Brubeck, Thandi Klaasen, the African Jazz Pioneers and more. Leonora Meriel's talent for jumping through time and space is akin to a lacemaker carefully crafting loops of fine thread to wave an intricate pattern whose beauty is so easy to take in. I found myself going back and forth between Eastern Europe, London and South Africa without feeling seasick or forlorn. Such craftsmanship for delicately writing stories that span generations and continents is noteworthy. I was transported from beginning to end, surprised to find so much written about Ukraine's history in a story about South African jazz. Layers of oppression through history: Ukraine, the Jewish people, black people in South Africa. A quest for truth and understanding from a white person who grew up with apartheid as the currency for everyday life. And the importance of forming community anywhere, not only to land a little softer upon arriving after leaving one's homeland but also to form resistance.

What may seem to be a novel for jazz lovers is ultimately one for anyone who questions order as it is established, unafraid to look truth and injustice in the eye.

"But it's the idea of home that takes me. The idea that we're all returning to a home that is inside us, and that it's the actions that feel right that lead us there."

A quick note about a very unfortunate error found in my ARC: at the end of chapter 7, the protagnist claims that the wave of migration of Eastern European Jews fleeing to South Africa was so great that forty years after 1876, the Jewish population of South Africa was three million. In 1914, on the eve of the first World War, the Jewish population in SA was of approximately 90 000 per my research (total population of SA at the time = around 6.2 million). I hope this error has been corrected for the final copy. It's an unusual mistake in an otherwise excellently researched book.

* Many thanks to NetGalley & Cameron Publicity & Marketing Ltd for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. *

I came for Jazz and what I got was a meandering tale about being Jewish and the limits of responsibility that bounces back and forth in time. I think I would have liked the story a lot more if it had been either linear or focusing only on one of the stories or if it had been beefier. As it is the part that starts in Ukraine was just kind of run of the mill and not particularly memorable except for the love letter to Hassidim Jewishness which was great. I'm not Jewish but I appreciated that the author used a sensitivity reader to make sure that that aspect of the book was well done. The back and forth aspects is in the blurb too, I just didn't understand it to mean it was going to be non-linear, that's on me though.

In the part about 1989, there's someone making a documentary about the Jazz scene in South Africa and the main dude is getting interviewed by them, that aspect could have been used better in my opinion (again I feel like the book needed to be longer).

I get that the author was trying to convey the fact that societal change isn't made just of grand gestures but also of people who do smaller parts and move on and that these people don't always come from a place of particularly marked courage, it's not an unimportant point. There's also quite a few insightful moment about responsibility and forging one's own path. That being said, there's very little actual action or tension and the character's inner life comes across as mostly flat for a vast majority of the book and that didn't feel particularly engaging despite the lovely prose, maybe that was part of the point though.

If you're looking for a migration story that centers the way minor actors effect change to reconcile you a little with the idea that one can't change everything but they can do something even if they don't fully grasp the meaning of it or the impact or even if they just do it as followers, you might find something to sink your teeth into with this quick read.

3.5 rounded up.

Many thanks to Cameron Publicity & Marketing Ltd and NetGalley for giving me a digital review copy of this book.

Mbaqanga Nights is a quick read with a sweeping scope. Protagonist Laurence Jude is a South African of Jewish descent. The storyline follows two main threads related to Laurence and his family: 1) his partnership in a jazz club playing mbaqanga music to a multiracial audience during apartheid and 2) his Jewish grandfather’s migration from Ukraine to South Africa to escape oppression. It features a wide variety of real people, such as the founder of Hasidism, musician and educator Darius Brubeck, Thandi Klaasen, and the African Jazz Pioneers.

It draws parallels between the anti-Jewish pogroms and the violent suppression of black South Africans. It traces a partial history of the Jewish diaspora, injustices of apartheid, and how a shared love of music brings people together. It is obviously well researched. It tells a positive story about how change can come about through a build-up of small changes at the grass roots level. I found it well worth reading.