OUT OF QUATRO, from exile to exoneration

276pp., illus., paperback, Cape Town, 2021

A memoir by Luthando Dyasop, which covers his young life as a black artist in apartheid South Africa, joining uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the ANC, his disillusionment with the autocratic rule within the training camps, being suspected of mutiny and his time in Quatro detention centre, his eventual release and his battle for vindication.

"Beautifully written, humane in judgement, an essential account from a frontline soldier of the ambiguities of South Africa's unfinished struggle for liberation." Prof. Thula Simpson, author of Umkhonto we Sizwe: the ANC's armed struggle

"Dyasop's story is the story of South Africa: complicated and resilient." Qaanitah Hunter, author of Balance of Power: Ramaphosa & the future of South Africa

Luthando Dyasop was born in 1958 in Mthatha in the former Transkei. In 1980 he joined uMkhonto we Sizwe in Lesotho and received military training in Angola. He was imprisoned in Quattro, the ANC's notorious gaol, after soldiers who fought against UNITA in the Eastern Front mutineered against further participation in the war. Released in 1988 and demobilised he was sent to Tanzania, but fled to Malawi before returning to South Africa in 1990. In 1996 he testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). He now lives in Johannesburg.