Inside Apartheid's Prison
Notes and letters of struggle
Raymond Suttner
An uplifting story of courage, determination and human endurance...
"I've chosen a path that I know is right. I've also known that I'd pay a price for it." (Raymond Suttner writing from prison, January 14, 1987)
Raymond Suttner joined the anti-apartheid movement as an idealistic young student. After his arrest in 1975 he was subjected to torture, solitary confinement and extended periods in jail. As a white, a Jew and a communist he was held in deep suspicion by the South African regime.
"I had heard about various people being tortured by South African police... When I became involved in the struggle, I knew I faced the prospect of detention... But nothing in my own life experience prepared me for the ordeal of falling into the hands of that group of single-minded sadists."
In telling his extraordinary story through his letters from prison, Suttner refuses to valorize himself or romanticize his experience. This inspiring story will long remain in the memory of those who read it.
Runner up for the Alan Paton Award, 2002.
Raymond Suttner was born in Durban in 1945. He became a leading activist in the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party. He spent over 10 years in prison and under house arrest for his anti-apartheid activities. He was elected to South Africa's first democratic parliament in 1994 and was South African ambassador to Sweden (1997-2001). He previously published Thirty Years of the Freedom Charter (1986) with Jeremy Cronin. Raymond Suttner is now a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Studies in Johannesburg.
Raymond Suttner is one of a small number of white comrades who played a substantial role in bringing apartheid to an end. His book should be read by all who are interested in South Africa.
—Walter Sisulu
Suttner’s eloquent and moving memoir of his ten years of detention… speaks not only to the history of struggle to end apartheid, but also to a need for dissenting voices in what one might term the ‘new world prison economy,’ a growing order of international dimensions and global consequences…Ultimately, Inside Apartheid’s Prison expresses the most basic meanings necessary for our continuing survival. May it stay in print for the many struggles that await us.
—Rain Taxi
Raymond Suttner’s Inside Apartheid’s Prison is one of the most important documents of political imprisonment and political struggle yet to emerge out of the increasing numbers of apartheid memoirs… It sets itself apart from the majority of the genre by its candid vulnerability and Suttner’s willingness to address the enormous human and personal costs of opposing the apartheid state. Suttner explores what I call the ‘costs of conviction’ in various periods of his life and service to the anti-apartheid cause.
—South African Historical Journal
Suttner wrote this book which includes passages from many letters he wrote while in prison in part as a form of therapy, to help him come to terms with the psychological damage his incarceration did to him…Suttner explains it was not easy for him, a white person who had served ‘only’ 10 years, to do so…The book is bleak in the extreme. The section referring to the few days of torture after his 1975 detention is almost as long as the years in Pretoria Central; a reflection of how, in prison, one day is much like the other. Yes, bleak. But a valuable reminder of the horror of apartheid, and why we must say: never again.
—Business Day
Inside Apartheid's Prison will give courage in the years to come to those who risk their personal freedom for social, economic and political justice.
—Portside
