The topic of South African Apartheid (1948-1994) is controversial, and the real-life stories featured in When Mourning Turned Into Dancing: An American’s Journey of Discovery of Post-Apartheid South Africa are passionate, inspirational, and heart-wrenching. Within these pages, there is also violence, hatred, and racism. Under Apartheid, people were hurt, and many died. People disappeared, never to be heard from again. Others profited hugely from the spoils of institutionalized racism.

Now, South Africa is experiencing a period of unparalleled renewal and change. Non-Whites are looking through the uncertainty with new hope. Oppression is fading, and poverty is being slowly pushed back. Tethers have been broken, and justice is beginning to be restored.

When Mourning Turned Into Dancing is a candid look at life in South Africa after the fall of Apartheid. The personal stories told within weave a patchwork quilt of devastation, hope, and finally, rebirth–a poignant reminder that even in the absence of prosperity, there is still beauty, and where there is the seed of new hope, the gift of renewal will blossom and flourish.

Hope springs eternal in When Mourning Turned Into Dancing: Seed of Hope in Post-Apartheid South Africa, a collection of memoirs, interviews, and correspondence from author and youth minister Mark Simone’s 16 trips to South Africa to aid the victims of Apartheid.