Thami Mnyele's life spanned the era of apartheid. He was born the same year the National Party won office and came of age in a time (the 1960s) and a place (Johannesburg) that offered a sensitive young black artist little encouragement. In 1985, in the waning days of apartheid, he was killed by South African Special Forces operatives in Gaborone, Botswana, where he had joined the banned African National Congress. Although reticent by nature, he played a vanguard role in efforts to throw open the doors of South African culture.

Thami Mnyele's story sheds light on this tumultuous era from an unusual perspective: that of an artist and not a "young lion." Not only does Mnyele's story help us understand the birth of a modern African aesthetic; it also addresses the genesis of revolutionary commitment. How did a man come to face the prospect of martyrdom and learn to accept it? How did this choice affect what he was able to express as an artist?

Diana Wylie's beautifully written and illustrated literary biography reveals the struggles inside and around a gentle South African artist as he remade himself into a revolutionary soldier, and brings fresh insights to our understanding of South Africa's recent history.

An ideology of African ignorance that justified white supremacy grew up in South Africa during the first half of the twentieth century: if Africans were hungry, it was because they didn't know how to feed themselves properly; they were ignorant of "how to live." As a result, growing scientistic impatience with African culture reconciled many white South Africans to the harsh policies of apartheid.

In Starving on a Full Stomach: Hunger and the Triumph of Cultural Racism in Modern South Africa, Diana Wylie tells the story of the foods Africans ate and the maladies they suffered, while she shows the ways in which doctors and politicians understood and acted upon those experiences in modern African life.

Wylie compares South Africa's food history with that of medieval Europe and modern America, and concludes by presenting some surprising similarities. Starving on a Full Stomach provides both a warning and a provocative framework that forces us to look at the continuing potential for misunderstanding and mismanagement of today's medical and food crises.