Black Diamond

Kristin Uys is a tough magistrate who lives alone with her cat in the Roodepoort district of Johannesburg. For personal reasons, she has launched a fierce one-woman crusade against prostitution in her town. Her main targets are the Visagie Brothers, Stevo and Shortie, who run a brothel. She cannot bring down the whole establishment, but she does get Stevo sentenced to six months for contempt of court.

From Diepkloof Prison, Stevo plots his revenge on the magistrate. He is helped, more or less, by the rather inept Shortie and by his former nanny, Aunt Magda. Kristin begins to receive menacing phone calls, her home is broken into and vandalized, and even her cat is threatened. The chief magistrate assigns her a bodyguard, and to her dismay security guard Don Mateza moves into her house and follows her everywhere.

The arrangement does not please Don's longtime girlfriend Tumi, a former model and successful businesswoman who wants to turn him into a Black Diamond, a member of South Africa's wealthy new black middle class. Don soon finds that the new job brings complications Tumi does not understand.

Zakes Mda's novel takes on a wide range of South African stereotypes, turning them upside down and exposing their ironies, often with humor. It is a quirky, clever portrait of contemporary life in a fast-changing city.