It's all about South Africa

Blog by Katherine Hannah

This summer at Biteback it’s all about South Africa. Not only have we recently published 'Who Rules South Africa' by Martin Plaut and Paul Holden, we are now about to give you Peter Hain’s autobiography 'Outside In', due to be released on 28th August.                                                                                                                                    Peter Hain has lived an extraordinary life. He has held an array of glittering posts in the British political establishment, from key roles in the Foreign Office and the Department of Trade and Industry, to the leadership of the Commons and brokering the 2007 devolution settlement in Northern Ireland. However, the political values he holds today spring directly from the injustices he witnessed when he was growing up in South Africa and which drew him into politics in the first place. His journey to become a British Cabinet Minister started on a different continent. Growing up in Pretoria, South Africa, life changed irrevocably when a close family friend was hanged by the apartheid government. Before that, the security police had taken his activist parents away in the middle of the night. As the eldest child, Peter was left to look after his younger brother and two small sisters. Thus began his career as a militant anti-apartheid protester. When his parents were released, the state made the lives of Peter and his family unbearably difficult. Far from the bloated memoirs of a former government insider, this is the story of a courageous, campaigning life that is intrinsically bound up with the destiny of South Africa. Perhaps most notably he was one of the most notorious faces of the campaign to stop apartheid South Africa’s cricket and rugby teams from touring Britain and Australia and then of the campaign to boycott South African sport globally. In terms of decency and principle, he was one of the best. ' Martin Ivens, Sunday Times ‘Reads more like a political thriller than a memoir.’ Decca Aitkenhead, The Guardian