The Power of One is a novel by Australian author Bryce Courtenay. It was first published in 1989. The story takes places in South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s. It tells the story of an Anglo-African boy. Through the course of the story he gets the nickname of Peekay. (In the movie version the main person in the story is Peter Phillip Kenneth Keith. It is different than the book. The author identifies "Peekay" as a reference to his earlier nickname "Pisskop": Afrikaans for "Pisshead.")