In this special episode, PEN SA president Nadia Davids invites Justice Albie Sachs to reflect on his first book, The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs (1966) – a testament to his resistance and resilience during the harsh deprivations of imprisonment.
Albie shares his experience of spending 168 days in solitary confinement, his struggle to convey the boredom and depression of detention as well as how he found beauty in writing about it.
Albie Sachs is an activist, writer and former judge on the Constitutional Court of South Africa (1994 – 2009). He is the author of several books, including The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, Justice in South Africa, Sexism and the Law, Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter and The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law. His latest books are We, the People: Insights of an Activist Judge (2016) and Oliver Tambo’s Dream (2017).
In this episode we stand in solidarity with publisher, human rights defender and civil society leader Osman Kavala. In April 2022, he was sentenced to life in prison in Turkey. Albie has a personal and deeply moving message for Osman, and reads from Nâzım Hikmet’s poem “On Living” as a tribute to him.
You can read more about his case here: https://pen-international.org/news/ruling-in-the-gezi-case-the-darkest-day-for-the-judiciary-of-turkey
This podcast series is funded by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.
