'This is not a prisoner's book. It would be a crass injustice of underestimation and simplification if it were presented and received that way. It describes how the ordinary timefocus of a man's perception can be extraordinarily rearranged by a definitive experience. . . . Prison irradiates this book with dreadful enlightenments; the dark and hidden places of the country from which the book arises are phosphorescent with it.' - Nadine Gordimer