These stories begin with the tale of a young man. One winter's morning in 1962, in anger and exhausted by the condition of being black, he joins an illegal army. The following year, he slips out of the country. The year after this, his leader Nelson Mandela is captured and tried for sabotage. In that trial, Mandela faces a life sentence but his bravery does not flag. Instead he rises to the occasion and utters the famous words 'I am the first accused,' and the world takes note as it watches an African man stand firm in the face of almost-certain death.

By the time Mandela appears appears before the judge to answer to sabotage charges in 1963 — by the time he has said he is prepared to die for the struggle against white domination — the young man who will one day be my father has fled the country and has already been in Russia for a year, learning how to shoot a gun and decipher Morse code. Like other recruits, he leaves without saying goodbye to his parents or his cousins or his best friend. He wakes up, after months of careful and near-solitary planning, and disappears into the mist. A decade later, he is in Lusaka. After leaving the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow, he goes to Tanzania where he works alongside other comrades to establish a military base. He travels to Guinea-Bissau and stands alongside Amílcar Cabral's forces staring down the Portuguese on the frontlines. By the time he reaches Lusaka, the man is no longer so young and has seen friends die.

From Always Another Country by Sisonke Msimang ©2018. Published by Publishers Group Canada.