Memory is the weapon
By: Don Mattera.
Publisher: Ravan Press
Published: 1987
Place of publication: Johannesburg
Language: eng
Number of pages: 151
Subjects: Mattera, Don, 1935-  -- Homes and haunts -- South Africa -- Johannesburg.; Poets, South African -- 20th century -- Biography.; Journalists -- South Africa -- Biography.; Sophiatown (Johannesburg, South Africa) -- Biography.; Johannesburg (South Africa) -- Biography.; South Africa -- Race relations.
Description: The story of Sophiatown has been told before but never with the eloquence that Don Mattera brings to Memory is the Weapon. Many faces make up the whole that was Sophiatown: teeming with political campaigns, bristling with the knives of the underworld and vigorous with the enterprise of ordinary people eking out a living for themselves, all this contributing to a burgeoining culture. Mattera captures it all in colourful and often heart-rending vignettes. These are the memories of a man who has touched the cloaks of the holy and the unholy, broken bread with the rich and the poor, crossed swords with the law and the lawless. The death of Sophiatown will remain an indictment of callousness and cruelty. That it is able to live on in the hearts and minds of generations to come is a proud tribute to the culture and artists it produced.