The Power of One

Content Warning: The source material features depictions of child abuse as well as racist violence and bigoted language. Additionally, the source material uses South African racial slurs for Black South Africans and South Africans with British ancestry. These epithets are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes of the source material.

On his Granpa’s chicken farm in the Natal Province of South Africa, Peekay’s mother has a mental health crisis. At five years old, Peekay is sent away from his beloved Zulu Nanny to an Afrikaans boarding school where he is the only English-speaking student, and he is the youngest by two years.

Peekay misunderstands the situations in which he finds himself and uses his own descriptions to make sense of events. Two 11-year-old students grab Peekay and take him to “stand trial” before another student whom Peekay calls the “Judge” and his “council of war.” The Judge and the other boys pee on Peekay and give him the name “Pisskop” or “Pisshead.”

The abuse causes Peekay to wet the bed. He is mocked and shamed by the boys in the dorm and caned by Mevrou, the head teacher. The bedwetting continues, and every day for a year Peekay is systematically abused by the much older boys and punished by Mevrou.