A sweeping story with intimate roots, Darker Shade of Pale traces a little-known chapter in the history of global migration: the journey of families at the turn of the twentieth century from the Jewish territories of the Russian Empire, called The Pale of Settlement, to the far-flung British colony of South Africa.

At the heart of this book by acclaimed South African sociologist, Deborah Posel, is the story of her grandfather, Maurice Posel. An ordinary man whose struggles and disappointments mirror those of countless others, this book challenges the common narrative of Jewish immigrant success in South Africa. Darker Shade of Pale brings into focus the traumas of dislocation along with the pressures to succeed and the shame of failure. Through one man’s unfulfilled hopes, we discover what was given and what was taken as immigrants sought to build new lives in a strange land.

Lyrical, probing and unflinching, Darker Shade of Pale is a powerful reminder that the migrant’s story is never simple and always singular.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deborah Posel is a sociologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Cape Town. She was the founding director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER), and was also founding director of UCT's Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA).  She has written extensively on South Africa’s past and present, and the making of the country’s racial order in particular.

'Darker Shade of Pale: Shtetl to Colony' is published by Wits University Press. Buy the book here.