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From International Socialism, No.24, Spring 1966, p.36.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
117 Days
Ruth First
Penguin, 3s 6d.
This book is not profound or full of insights but Miss First writing about personal disturbance is clearer than the psychoanalyst. She tells of personality disintegration, of the effort to maintain or to regain psychic integrity under the lawful abuses of the South African police.
She was detained under the 90 day no-trial law, re-arrested minutes after being released, and held without charge for a total of 117 days ‘for questioning.’ Interspersed in the recall of her own experience are long fragments about the treatment of other people including the torture and death while in custody of Looksmart Solwandle.
Like Duncan’s collection of news clippings about atrocious conditions in South Africa this book is useful publicity. In addition, since it is an account of subjective distress, it tells something about the censorship that seeks to be effective by ruining the human mind.
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Last updated on 15.5.2008