In the winter of 1975, Erich Rautenbach’s life took a serious turn for the worse when he was bust for selling weed by gun-toting undercover cops. He’d been selling the dope to raise money to leave South Africa in a bid to escape his army call-up and resist having to shoot people in the name of apartheid. But instead he found himself in the infamous John Vorster Square, at the mercy of drug squad policemen who seemed convinced that he was part of some notorious drug ring.
This wild memoir recreates the Cape Town of the 1960s and ’70s, where Erich hung out with people from District Six and the Bo-Kaap and jammed with fellow musicians at The Office on Long Street. He describes his travels around the country, to Durban, Johannesburg, the Zulu village where he bought Durban Poison, and all the places in between, and recounts his experiences at John Vorster Square, The Fort and Sterkfontein Sanatorium, where events quickly spiralled out of control.
Written in an electric and hilarious style, The Unexploded Boer is destined to become a cult classic.