GOING BACK TO SAY GOODBYE, a boyhood on the mine

138pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2016

In his memoir Kenneth de Kok writes about growing up in the small mining community of Stilfontein in the Western Transvaal in the 1950s.

"A childhood caught in amber - so clear in writing, exquisite in detail and glimmering in delicate beauty, that, peering closely, it helps us fathom today." Antjie Krog

"Just in time, before it vanishes over the horizon forever, Kenneth de Kok gives us the South Africa of the 1950s as it appeared to the fresh and innocent eyes of a child." JM Coetzee

Kenneth de Kok was born in 1949 in Stilfontein. He left South Africa in 1971 to avoid further military service and after living in the UK and Holland he immigrated to Canada in 1978.