Student Comrade Prisoner Spy: A Memoir

Title: Student Comrade Prisoner Spy
Subtitle: A Memoir
Author: Bridget Hilton-Barber
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Imprint: Zebra Press
Cape Town, South Africa 2016
ISBN 9781770228009 / ISBN 978-1-77-022800-9
Softcover, 15 x 24 cm, 246 pages, several colour and b/w photographs

About: Student Comrade Prisoner Spy, A Memoir

When Bridget Hilton-Barber got on a train to Grahamstown in 1982 to study journalism at Rhodes University, she had no idea of the brutal drama that would unfold. A rebellious young woman, she became politically involved in anti-apartheid organisations and was caught up in the massive resistance and repression sweeping the Eastern Cape at the time. She ended up spending three months in detention without trial, and after her release discovered she had been betrayed by one of her best friends, Olivia Forsyth, who was a spy for the South African security police. Thirty years later, a horrific flashback triggers Bridget’s journey back to the Eastern Cape to see if she can forgive her betrayer and finally let go of the extraordinary violence she encountered in the final days of apartheid. This is her powerful story. Bridget Hilton-Barber, daughter of David Hilton-Barber, is a well-known travel writer and author based in Limpopo province. A former travel correspondent for Radio 702 and editor of Sawubona, SAA's in-flight magazine, she has had a colourful career in the South African media spanning some twenty years and has written for most of South Africa's top publications. Her memoir Garden of My Ancestors was the intensely personal story of her family and roots. This is her ninth book.

Content: Student Comrade Prisoner Spy, A Memoir

Prologue
part one: burning woman
1 Train to Rhodes
2 City of Saints
3 Meeting Olivia
4 The Fruit Basket
5 Waiting for the breeze
6 Heartbreak in the time of the Struggle
7 Currie Street
8 Burning woman
9 The Cradock Four
10 National madness
11 Olive s farewell
12 Jazz and Violence
13 Alexandria Police Station
14 North End
15 Pakjougoed
16 Fort Glamorgan
17 Spyker
18 Knitting
19 Uncertain future
part two: transitions
20 Uncomfortably numb
21 Champagne and freedom
22 Truth and reconciliation
23 Olivia receding
part three: the road of broken memory
24 Crash, 2015
25 Liberating the ghosts
26 On the road
27 Aloes in the cold
28 Photographs and memories
29 Sequelae
30 Choices
Afterword
Addendum
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Glossary
Sources
Index