CATCHING TADPOLES, the shaping of a young rebel, a memoir

293pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2019

A coming-of-age memoir by South African politician Ronnie Kasrils.

"Ronnie Kasrils gives us the first 21 years of his life with all the elements that have made him beloved of freedom fighters and book readers alike: his dash, his cunning, his humour, his humanity and - most of all - his irrepressible joie de vivre. He comes of age, he comes to political consciousness and he brings his early worlds - from Jewish Yeoville to Bohemian Joburg - to life. Unputdownable." Mark Gevisser, author of Lost and Found in Johannesburg, a memoir

"Kasrils is irreverent and irrepressible - the original rebel without a pause." Zapiro, cartoonist

"This fine book illustrates that Karil's rebel child is father to the revolutionary man." Mongane Serote, author of Yakhal' Inkomo

Ronnie Kasrils (b. 1938) joined the ANC in 1960 after the Sharpville Massacre. He was a commander in Umkhonto weSizwe, the ANC's military wing, from its inception in 1961 until 1990 and served in government from 1994 until he resigned in 2008. He lives in Johannesburg. His other books include an autobiography, Armed and Dangerous, from undercover struggle to freedom, The Unlikely Secret Agent, which won the Alan Paton Award, and A Simple Man, Kasrils and the Zuma enigma.