Product Review

Like many South Africans in the seventies and eighties, Stephen €˜Sugar€ Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom were obsessed with the music of Rodriguez, but the man himself was a mystery. Only his name was known, and the fact that he had killed himself on stage. After years of searching in a pre-internet age, the two men found the singer living in seclusion in Detroit. Remarkably, the blue-collar worker had no idea that he had been famous for over twenty-five years in this remote pariah of the world.

In 2006, Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul set out to find €˜the best story on earth€ and stumbled on this remarkable tale in the Guardian newspaper. He tracked down Segerman and Strydom, and so began his four-year long quest to make the Oscar-winning documentary, Searching for Sugar Man. Sugar Man: The Life, Death and Resurrection of Sixto Rodriguez outlines three separate journeys and the obstacles and triumphs that each presented: Rodriguez€s struggle to make a life from music; the odyssey of two fans to find out what had happened to their hero; and Bendjelloul€s pursuit to bring the story to celluloid. The book is packed with information not included in the film, about Rodriguez€s background, relationships and political activities, his tours to Australia, and the recognition that has finally come to him after the film€s success.