My Thirty-Minute Bar Mitzvah

A moving, witty memoir about a Jewish childhood in apartheid-era South Africa

'Hilarious and heart-breaking' William Kentridge

What kind of bar mitzvah lasts only thirty minutes? As South African author Denis Hirson gradually reveals the details of his highly unusual ceremony, he explores the familial and political themes that thread their way through his story.

Recreating 1960s apartheid-era Johannesburg through his adolescent eyes, he writes of the silences that surrounded his Jewish heritage, and of the day that one of the family's secrets finally exploded. With the surprising help of his eleven-year-old daughter, Hirson is able to finally confront the troubles of his past with wisdom, humour and subtle lyricism.