Speaking about Sobukwe, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said: "I am greatly privileged to have known him and to have fallen under his spell. His long imprisonment, restriction, and early death were a major tragedy for our land and for the world." "Pogrund's book is welcome not just because it bears witness to the real complexity of black liberation politics but as a monument to a fine and remarkable man . . . who gave voice to the voiceless."--New Statesman & Society "This is a moving story well told. . . . It is based on unique knowledge and documents, written with all the fluency, commitment and authority of the reporter who himself enraged the regime by exposing conditions in South African prisons."--The Guardian, London Thirty years ago, Robert Sobukwe led a mass defiance of the pass laws in South Africa. He persuaded blacks to present themselves at police stations and demand arrest, but the nonviolent protest turned to tragedy when the police opened fire, killing sixty-nine. It was March 21, 1960, at Sharpeville, Sobukwe's last day of liberty. He died nearly eighteen years later of lung cancer. Leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress, Sobukwe was both a colleague and rival of figures better known today: Tutu, Mandela, and Buthelezi. Because the Pan-Africanist idea was not in the end supported by the anti-Apartheid leadership, Sobukwe and his contributions have been largely forgotten. It is more than appropriate that his story be told now. Understanding his life is essential to a full understanding of the tensions among contemporary black leaders in South Africa.

Over four decades ago, radical scholars began to suggest a new way of looking at South African society - one that blamed the economic power of those who owned property for the racial bondage of the black majority. Their work, and the debates it triggered, are mostly forgotten, but they and their critics have much to say that sheds lights on today's South African realities. Harold Wolpe was arguably the most influential theorist of this generation. His writings played a major role in a revolution in thought, and his celebrated escape from prison in the 1960s made him a symbol of alternative action. Race, Class and Power clearly and insightfully examines Wolpe's work in the political, intellectual, and social contexts in which it was developed and to which it gave form. Drawing on interviews with those who Wolpe worked with, disagreed with, and inspired, the book also maps his influence on ideas and the culture that emerged in anti-apartheid circles in the 1970s. Harold Wolpe's writings are a prism through which South African society can be viewed, and this book is an intellectual biography both of Wolpe and of South Africa's left. It also assesses and engages with the ongoing impact of Wolpe's ideas into the post-apartheid present. Moreover, it suggests how Wolpe's work can move us towards a way of thinking about and acting upon South Africa's realities differently.

Presents the life of the Scottish activist who worked as a secret agent against apartheid in South Africa during the 1960s, suffering imprisonment until her escape from the country.

Now in its fourth edition, Armed and Dangerous is the first-hand account of Kasrils's years in both the liberation struggle and in government. Kasrils gives an insider's account of the workings of Umkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the ANC. Nicknamed 'The Red Pimpernel' by the South African press and public for slipping in and out of South Africa in disguise to run secret missions, Kasrils narrowly escaped arrest in several close shaves with security forces. Following the arrests of Mandela and other ANC leaders, he fled into hiding overseas, became one of the key commanders of Umkhonto weSizwe and set up training camps in Tanzania, Cuba and elsewhere. Armed and Dangerous is dedicated to the Born Frees, the generation born after the attainment of a democratic South Africa in 1994, to help them understand the struggle and carry on where we left off to make South Africa a better place for all who live in it.

"Ja, No, Man is an eerily familiar portrayal of the life of an ordinary white South African growing up during Apartheid-era South Africa. Told with extraordinary humour and self-awareness, Poplak's story brings his gradual understanding of the difference between his country and the rest of the world vividly to life. A startlingly original memoir that veers sharply from the quotidian to the bizarre and back again, Ja, No, Man is an enlightening, darkly hilarious, and, at times, disturbing read." From book cover