Prisoner of Conscience. One man's remarkable journey from repression to freedom

Imprisoned for two years in the early 1980s for his refusal to serve in the army under apartheid, Yeats blends the quiet account of his resistance with a highly readable overview of South African history, from the first European settlers in the seventeenth century (including his own ancestors) through the long years of oppression and, finally, liberation. A white from a very privileged background ("We looked away. We played sport"), he deliberately returned home from England to confront the racist system. Coping with abuse and solitary confinement in prison, he started a theology degree by correspondence, and he is now an ordained Anglican minister who teaches business ethics in Durham. Yeats writes without self-importance, calling himself "pathetically limp and self-indulgent," and his arguments at his trial and with himself lend authority to his final discussion of the critical issues facing the church today, including the inclusion of gays and the struggle for peace in the Middle East. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved