Bryce Courtenay · 1989 · overland

Bryce Courtenay's 1989 novel. In 1940s South Africa, an English boy nicknamed Peekay endures a brutal Afrikaner boarding school, then finds mentors - a German music teacher, a black boxing champion - as he moves across the country from the lowveld to Barberton's prison and the Johannesburg mines, dreaming of becoming welterweight champion and of the power of one to change the world.

1. 1
   Barberton

   The lowveld town where Peekay grows up, is sent to a cruel boarding school, and later befriends the German professor Doc, learning music, boxing and self-reliance.

2. 2
   Johannesburg

   The great mining city where the teenage Peekay works underground as a 'grizzly man' among the miners, pursuing his boxing and his education toward the welterweight title.