Helen Suzman: Bright Star in a Dark Chamber. Signed by author.

Robin Renwick, Helen Suzman: Bright Star in a Dark Chamber. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2014.

Hard cover, dustwrapper, 148 pages, plates.

The slightest shelf-wear to the dustwrapper, very good condition.

Signed on the title-page by the author (Baron Renwick of Clifton, one-time British ambassador to South Africa), and inscribed by him on the front free endpaper to a fellow former diplomat.

When Robin Renwick was appointed British ambassador to South Africa in 1987, he formed a deep friendship with Helen Suzman. Now, drawing on her personal papers, Renwick sets out to capture the qualities of the woman who, in the face of the hostility of the apartheid regime, carved out a unique role for herself as an intrepid fighter for human rights, simple justice and the rights of prisoners and the disenfranchised majority. Her steely determination in pursuit of these principles earned her the admiration of millions of South Africans, black and white. As she memorably said: Like everybody else, I long to be loved. But I am not prepared to make any concessions whatsoever. In Bright Star in a Dark Chamber, Renwick recalls her biting wit and fierce intelligence, and the close friendship she formed with Nelson Mandela, while he was still behind prison bars.