This story is incredibly uplifting, and in the end, it is a true story! Finding Penrose is fascinating story that captures the evolution of South Africa from an exploitative colonial society in the 1920s, through rigidly enforced apartheid, through its abolition in the 1990’s, as seen through the eyes of Penrose, an African man stripped of his boyhood memories.
Brought into a white family, first as servant then as family, Penrose lives on the far side of the law that requires him to carry a document confirming the identity he cannot recall. He carefully skirts this law, but during this dangerous period, he encounters the best and the worst of both black and white South Africans. But through these trials, he maintains his dignity, living the values instilled in him in the childhood he cannot recall, ultimately gaining the respect and friendship of those who once despised him. In the end, he chooses to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect the only family he knows.