team which covered the TRC hearings for SABC radio. Significantly and appropriately, it is as the poet Krog rather than the journalist Samuel that she has chosen to publish her account, although it draws on the methods of both. On one level, Country of My Skull is a full and well-documented account of the methods and historical processes of the TRC, and is worthwhile reading for that aspect alone. But Krog has chosen to foreground her complex personal responses, and these are interspersed with the testimonies of victims and perpetrators which make up much of the book. Often the work reads more like a novel than a conventional non-fiction account.While Krog's book has been widely acclaimed, reviewers have been quick to point out the dangers of her approach. Claudia Braude of the Mail & Guardian has been the most critical. In a review titled 'Elusive Truths', Braude argues against the politics she perceives within Krog's postmodernist standpoint and finds similarities between Krog's difficulty with the concept 'truth' and the arguments of former-president F W. de Klerk in the National Party's submission to the TRC. De Klerk warned of 'the elusive nature of truth' and argued that '[perceptions] of what is true vary from time to time, from place to place and from party to party'.Braude accuses Krog of '[decriminalising] the NP' and '[promoting] De Klerk's denial of responsibility' (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18) June p9). On the other hand, Andries Oliphant argues that Krog does not trivialise the 'grave matters' unearthed by the commission:While not entirely escaping the danger, Krog's account dramatises the problems and difficulties of how to write about and represent atrocities.... Its poetic tenor and the explicit fictionalisation of certain events indicate the writer's reluctance to sensationalise or treat the stories of victims and perpetrators as nothing more than factual data. The writing in this book is ... deeply personal and self-confrontational and therefore fully responsible to society. She takes the risks involved in her personalised approach ... to try and communicate something of the experience of being confronted with the unspeakable. In taking these risks her ethic is not to lie, even if she dangles the idea of lying before the reader, but to convey the full meaning of her experiences and perceptions ... (Sunday Independent 4 October p20).
