"A brutal excavation of a white South African’s conscience during the final days of apartheid."

"A question the architects of apartheid should have stopped and asked themselves at the start, and a question I try to ask about my own deeply held convictions every day."

"Plaatje was a founder and first general secretary of the organization that became the African National Congress, and his writings have survived to become some of the most compelling and celebrated accounts of the early days of apartheid."

"Warning: this is one of the most upsetting books I’ve ever read, but it’s a great one. Set in South Africa, a nation struggling to remake itself in the wake of Apartheid, it tracks a professor’s downfall as he suffers a career-ending scandal followed by a horrific episode in the life of his daughter. It’s a Booker-winning book by a Nobel-winning novelist."

"The story of a Zulu pastor and his son, set amid the horror of apartheid South Africa. It’s the tragic yet redemptive tale of human dignity, a beautifully woven story of that time. It was written in 1948, and I read it when I was at university in the early 1980s, when South Africa was the big moral story of the time. I longed to be a foreign correspondent and get out there. I also read, and wept through many performances of South African playwright Athol Fugard’s plays. But the images from this book stay with me, as does its amazing title."

"This film made me cry real tears! It’s about the 1976 Soweto Uprising and the injustice experienced by many Black people due to corrupt police and the flawed South African governmental system. I think it’s worth listening to Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela whilst looking at the momentous history of apartheid, and the fact many writers and musicians had to go to into exile in fear of prosecution. Also, in Come Back, Africa (1959) by Lionel Rogosin​, Makeba makes a cameo and sings two songs in a bar. One I cherish a lot is a lullaby called “Lakutshon, Ilanga”."