Tafelberg Book Chat: Cleaner's Boy by Patric Tariq Mellet

NB Publishers

Cleaner's Boy: A resistance road to a liberated life by Patric TariqMellet, published by Tafelberg, was launched at The Book Lounge in Cape Town. Patric was in conversation with radio veteran Clarence Ford. This is a recording of that conversation. Order your copy of Cleaner’s Boy from leading book stores or online. More details on our website: https://www.nb.co.za/en/view-book/?id=9780624093657 About this book: In 1997 I became Patric William Tariq Mellet at the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. For 41 years I’d been known by neither of my parents’ surnames, but as ‘De Goede’. I’d gone through momentous times with this persona, and suddenly ‘De Goede’ was no more — ‘De Goede’ was dead. All that remained as a reminder was a nickname, ‘Zinto’, given to me by comrades who’d humorously interpreted ‘De Goede’ as ‘things’ — ‘zinto’ in isiXhosa. This book tells the story of both personas, and of the road I took as I navigated my way through the grey world of the ‘halfnaatjie’ . . . I was born into a whirlwind of turbulence which, over time, I learnt never would pass. Questions of identity were unavoidable in Patric Tariq Mellet’s life. As a small child he watched as his immediate family were mistreated, arbitrarily classified and separated through apartheid laws. He endured a turbulent childhood, shuttled between foster families responding to his mom’s plea for ‘a home for a well-behaved Catholic boy’ and surviving Dickensian conditions in the ‘Huis’, a hellish children’s asylum in Vredehoek. Despite deception about his birth father, Patric found a path towards his roots and a sense of self, which sparked the fire of resistance in the young Cleaner’s Boy – a term of endearment that referred to his mother. Patric Mellet’s autobiography demonstrates a spirit of unbridled defiance. In small and major ways, he liberated himself from an unpromising and tragic early life to a life of undoubtable impact and influence. A freedom fighter, a mystic and always a firebrand.