A bestselling South African writer known for tackling history and memory finally makes his American debut

Witty and deeply poignant, My Thirty-Minute Bar Mitzvah is a breathtaking account of one man being confronted by his past, and how his daughter finally proved to be the key in understanding his own father.

Recreating 1960s Johannesburg through his adolescent eyes, bestselling South African author Denis Hirson writes of the silences that weighed on his family and his developing consciousness of his Jewish heritage.

Denis's father, Baruch Hirson, a lecturer in mathematics and member of the African Resistance Movement, was convicted in 1964 for sabotage. Early on in his father's imprisonment, on Denis's 13th birthday, Baruch had been allowed to spend half an hour with his son and 2 prison officers in the back of a Volkswagen Beetle in a prison car park while Denis's mother sat watching what Denis refers to as his 30 minute bar mitzvah from the family car.

Denis left South Africa in 1973 at the age of 22 when, following his father's release from prison, his family were given 3 days to pack up their home and leave by ship.

My Thirty-Minute Bar Mitzvah is a gem of a book about becoming a man. It's also a valuable account of a forgotten time of white, Jewish activists, their families, their community, and most importantly, their children, who had to stumble through life in the aftermath of their commitment.