MY LIFE, the making of an Afrikaner revolutionary in the South African liberation struggle

258pp., illus., paperback, Cape Town, 2017

Stephanie Kemp was born in 1941 into a conservative Afrikaner family and grew up in Malmesbury. After completing her schooling in Port Elizabeth, she went on to the University of Cape Town in 1960, where she joined the Defence and Aid Fund and was subsequently recruited into the underground South African Communist Party (SACP). She also joined the African Resistance Movement sabotage organisation, was arrested in 1964, detained in solitary confinement, tortured, charged with sabotage and sentenced to five years imprisonment. On her release in 1966 she fled the country. In exile she married Albie Sachs and was active in SACP structures in the UK, working closely with Joe Slovo and Yusuf Dadoo. She returned to South Africa in 1990.