cover image Sophiatown Pa

Sophiatown Pa

Don Mattera. Beacon Press (MA), $12 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8070-0207-0

A former leader of a black gang in a ghetto near Johannesburg details his rise to political consciousness and his activism. ``In this short, inconclusive, evocative memoir, the poet-dramatist writes powerfully of his wretched life as a wild young man, of his people's struggle for liberation and of his own conversion from violence to the use of peaceful methods. He provides a searing view of a troubled land,'' said PW . (July)