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Description

This collection of poems was first published in 1993 at the time when both hopes and fears were harbouring almost if not the majority of South Africans. In this 30th Anniversary Edition published 2023, new poems are added as a continuation of reflection and consciousness of the current socio-economic environment in South Africa.

In the midst of these mixed feelings, a poet with a ‘socio-econo-political’ and spiritual voice emerged from the Soweto ghetto of Dobsonville. As a young man, Itumeleng Surprise Segaloe has not only been an eye-witness of the brutality of the regime seeking to dehumanize a people who sought to affirm their existence as people, he was once detained under the state of emergency.

As a committed poet, Surprise perceives the struggle as encompassing the whole of one’s being. He relates it to his belief, mind and body. At a time when every black looks with despair at the manner in which Christianity was intertwined with colonialism, a poet like Surprise offers a relevant analysis of Christian in the struggle for freedom. The one is in harmony with the other and it is implicitly or if not explicitly a call for Christians to be relevant. Any commitment that seeks out to reconstruct and liberate, is to do so in a holistic manner to ensure that the violence suffered during the time of oppression is not manifested in any other form.