Meet Chris Steyn author of nation-rocking Lost Boys of Bird Island

I’ve always been a huge fan of my former colleague Chris Steyn, having seen close up how she has always made exposing the truth her only priority, regularly speaking out against the powerful on behalf of those without a voice. Much has happened in the few weeks since the publication of the best-seller, most dramatically the suicide last month of her co-author Mark Minnie. Chris has also been the subject of sustained attacks by some of Afrikanerdom’s formerly powerful figures, including a scathing accusation by an Apartheid police general that she and Minnie made it all up. Lost Boys of Bird Island hit the South African book reading market like a hurricane, evoking strong emotions both ways. Since its publication, social media has been buzzing non-stop and Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Rapport has devoted hundreds of column centimetres to both sides…Much of the debate being focused on the naming of two Apartheid cabinet ministers, particularly the once all-powerful former Minister of Defence Magnus Malan – a man whose jug-ears were lampooned by cartoonists during his lifetime...and a feared figure referred to by the catamite streetkids as “Ore” ("ears”).