The Power of One

The Power of One is a novel by the South African born Australian writer Bryce Courtenay, first published in 1989. It is set in the Union of South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s.

The book is narrated by an adult looking back on his childhood, and it follows him from a boarding school where he is the only English boy to the boxing ring and to the farms, prisons and mines that make up the world around him. Courtenay gives him a series of teachers: an Afrikaans boy who teaches him to fight, a German pianist, a black prisoner who becomes a friend, and the boxer he trains under. The name Peekay comes from an Afrikaans nickname, and the adult voice keeps its understanding of what the child in the story is going through.

The novel deals directly with the racial politics of the period, and Courtenay chose the first person so that the reader learns the country at the same pace as the boy. He later wrote a sequel, Tandia.