"Dr Khulu Mbatha on his boyhood, adolescence and young adulthood. A youth organiser, he went into exile at the time of the June 1976 student uprising, first to Swaziland and later to Tanzania, returning to South Africa in 1991. His memoir includes the histories of friends he grew up with in Soweto and comrades he knew in exile. From 2018 to 2021 Mbatha worked as a special advisor on international relations to President Cyril Ramaphosa. He served as an advisor to President Kgalema Motlanthe and was Deputy-Director-General of the Department of Home Affairs during Thabo Mbeki's presidency. Under President Nelson Mandela he was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later joined the Permanent Mission of South Africa to the United Nations in New York before being appointed by Mandela as the Consul General in Munich."