Catching Tadpoles: The Shaping of a Young Rebel
by Ronnie Kasrils
(Jacana, £16.95)

“THIS fine book illustrates that [the] rebel child is father to the revolutionary man,” is how writer and anti-apartheid militant Mongane Wally Serote describes this compelling story of Ronnie Kasrils’s early years in South Africa.

Through this memoir of his childhood and youth, Kasrils explores the experiences that impelled the “boykie” from Yeoville, Johannesburg, to become a bolshevik ANC guerrilla, anti-apartheid fighter and underground operative before becoming a government minister in post-apartheid South Africa.

In what’s an absolutely captivating read, he tells the story of the “cheeky chappie” who grew up to become known as the Red Pimpernel for his exploits in the liberation struggle, evading capture by the South African security forces as he did so.