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What God Joined Together is a true story of a prohibited love during the apartheid era of South Africa. The author, a so-called 'Coloured' born and bred in Cape Town, meets and falls in love with a white German woman while he is studying in Germany. The woman's parents' opposition to their daughter's relationship with the African brings such tension to the home that the young lady gives in to a compromise suitor, and writes a 'final' letter to her big love, who had returned to South Africa at the completion of his studies.
The story, that swings back and forth between committing the biggest 'offence' in Afrikaner circles at the time - romantic relationships across the colour bar, dealing with a spy network that reached all the way to Germany, government interception of letters, a rebound towards the compromise suitor, possible reclassification for a South African marriage, a final termination of relationship to both young men, reinstatements, work in South Africa permitted then refused by the South African government, makes the reader giddy with suspense.
The 'happily ever after' is held in abeyance after the exiled young man, in an attempt to reconcile, moves to work with the Moravian Church in Germany at the end of November, 1973, which is followed by a failed reconciliation with the young woman's parents, a further visa refusal, a warning from the Special Branch of the South African Secret Police, and finally an appeal to the South African Prime Minister.
What God Joined Together, originally written in Afrikaans, was an attempt to help assist the scrapping of the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and other apartheid legislation. This version reads like a romantic thriller that also gives an insider's glimpse into South African history and more especially into the lives of people under Apartheid.
