can fumbles in his pockets and takes out a cigarette and a match. He lights the cigarette and starts smoking. He pours himself some whisky. He starts typing, pausing only to sip from his glass. A thought strikes him. He kills the cigarette. He lifts his head and starts nodding slowly. He gets up as if he has come to a realisation.

CAN: This is a wake-up call for me to accept that the apartheid government has now noted me as a ‘person of interest’. Maybe they will even declare me as a statutory communist. Imagine: me a communist. Clearly they haven't read much of my work. I have made it clear that much as I admire communism's support for the underdog and their sense of social welfare, I find the rigidness of their doctrine quite problematic. It does not encourage independent thought. While I am not a communist, I am even less of a fascist. I hate fascism and Nazism much more than I hate communism.

And so I have earned myself enemies in both camps. I have raised the ire of the local reds and the apartheid government alike. They choose to read my work selectively and interpret it in ways that suit their motives.

The security forces of the apartheid regime started taking an interest in me after the concentration camp story that I penned for Drum. The whole world was shocked to find out that political activists were banished to the bush by the South African government. The government said I was exaggerating by creating an impression that South Africa had Nazi-style concentration camps.

Actually, that story made me realise the ferocity of the apartheid regime. Africans in South Africa have to endure all the crudities and brutalities of life, from Satan to Verwoerd. Or maybe Satan and Verwoerd are the same person in different forms. I have come to realise that there are individuals facing far more difficult situations than my own.

Think of Alcott Gwentshe, for instance. Alcott Skei Gwentshe was born in Tsomo and became a shopkeeper in East London. He had the charm of a natural leader. He became the president of the ANC Youth League in the Cape and was the leader of the 1952 Defiance Campaign in East London.