“Reading is Your Connection to the World”: Zackie Achmat Reveals What He Read While in Prison
Zackie Achmat, founder and chairman of the Treatment Action Campaign, has listed the books he read while incarcerated in Victor Verster Prison in 1980 for acting against the apartheid government. In this article for O Magazine, Achmat says, “Reading in prison is your connection to the world. And it still is now, even out of prison.”
Achmat read many European and African classics, including The Rebel by Albert Camus, Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People, Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi, Peter Abrahams’ Mine Boy, Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country and A Grain of Wheat, The River Between and Secret Lives and Other Stories by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.
When Zackie Achmat was incarcerated in Victor Verster Prison, Paarl, in 1980, he read widely to ease his loneliness and increase both his personal and political development. He says, “Reading in prison is your connection to the world. And it still is now, even out of prison.”
Here, he shares the list of the titles he read.
The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud
The Rebel, by Albert Camus
Man and His Symbols, by Carl Jung
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
Book details
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
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EAN: 9780141186887
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- No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
EAN: 9780435913519
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- Mine Boy by Peter Abrahams
EAN: 9780435905620
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- Mhudi by Sol T Plaatje
EAN: 9780435902018
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eBook: Mhudi: An epic story about African life a century ago by Sol T Plaatje
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EAN: 9780868522432
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- Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
EAN: 9780099766810
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- A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
EAN: 9780435909871
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- A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe
EAN: 9780435905347
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- The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
EAN: 9780435905484
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