Stones against the mirror - Hugh Lewin

Stones against the Mirror Friendship in the time of the South African Struggle - Hugh Lewin - Umuzi - 2011 - 189pp - Paperback in good condition - One name, rest clean and tightly bound.

Postage & packaging R28.00

A brave and moving memoir which is both a family history and a story of friendship and betrayal between people caught up in the wrenching forces of the South African Struggle. It is framed as a journey between two railway stations. The departure is from Park station Johannesburg and the destination is York station in Britain. It is an actual journey and the arrival at York is a real event, but it is also a symbolic journey in which Lewin describes his progress towards a meeting with Adrian Leftwich, the man who betrayed him to the Security Police in 1964. Park station is the point of departure because it was the site in 1964 of the station bomb planted by John Harris who was associated with the cell in which Lewin operated. The book therefore has a quest structure. After 40 years, Lewin is determined to meet with his long-term friend Leftwich both to find out what happened at his trial and to deal with the emotions of anger and bitterness that have assailed him ever since. Lewin’s subject is the culpability of betrayal.

“This is the book that was waiting to be written. There have been many accounts of life in the active struggle against the apartheid regime but this one is a fearless exploration into the deepest gound – the personal moral ambiguity of betrayal under brutal interrogation – actual betrayal of the writer by the most trusted associate and closest friend; and the lifetime question whether one would have betrayed that same friend under such circumstances, oneself. Hugh Lewin is the man to have faced this with the courage of a fine writer. Unforgettable, invaluable in facing now the ambiguities of our present, and future”, aldus Nadine Gordimer