The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter

What is it like to wake up in hospital and discover you’ve lost and arm and the sight in one eye in a bomb blast? Albie Sachs, an anti apartheid activist since the age of 17, writes with thoughtfulness, passion and humour about his recovery after his car was blown up by South African security agents while he lived in Maputo.

Was it worth it? Sach’s answer is a resounding yes. Declining a comrade’s promise if revenge, he imagines instead a ‘soft vengeance’: not retribution, but the creation of a society grounded in justice, dignity and humanity.

He reflects on the wonder of a body relearning itself and the exhilaration of being alive, while weaving in an insider’s view of a country in transition – from Mandela’s election to his own role in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, his appointment as a judge of the Constitutional Court, and the creation of its art-filled home at the Old Fort Prison.

Sachs received the Alan Paton Award in 1991 for The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter.