Author(s): Marion Van Dyk

General

'Under the Skin is a moving account of growing up as a "coloured" in South Africa, and is marked by its vitality, warmth and insight. Marion's is a strong, assured voice, wonderfully free of self-absorption, and she balances her personal story with historical and political analysis of the apartheid years.' - ZOE WICOMB, internationally acclaimed author of You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town Marion van Dyk's absorbing memoir submerges the reader in the world of South Africa in the 1950s through to the 1980s. Classified as a 'coloured' (being neither black nor white) by an apartheid government, she and her family are forced to live as second-class citizens, caught between two worlds. Marion and her family struggle to make ends meet after they are forced to leave their family home when their area is redesignated for whites only. After relocating to a small 'coloured' township, Marion attends a school where, despite severe restrictions, her teachers fight tooth and nail to give her an education. She eventually becomes head of a computer programming department, breaking through racial and gender barriers in the process.