Of the two 2009 Sunday Times Literary Awards winners, we’ve seen an excerpt from one, Anne Landsman’s Fiction Prize winner, The Rowing Lesson (which you can read here).
The other, however – Peter Harris’ gripping account of the trial of the Delmas Four, In a Different Time, which won the Alan Paton Award – has heretofore gone unexcerpted on our network.
Clearly, this is a problem that requires rectification without delay. We are very pleased, then, to bring you one of the book’s key scenes, in which Harris and his colleagues lead the evidence of notorious apartheid operative Dirk Coetzee – in their clients’ defence:
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We meet Coetzee in the hall. He’s wearing a sporty checked jacket and looking pumped up, ready for the occasion. In the past few days, Dennis Kuny has spent a lot of time with him going over his evidence. Bheki and I have also spoken to him to get his motivation right. Fortunately, reviving his spirits wasn’t too difficult: all it took to get his blood up were a few reminders of how his erstwhile colleagues had turned on him. With Coetzee is his brother Ben who has come to London to be with him at this critical time and is a major stabilising influence.
I have to hand it to Dirk Coetzee, he’s a fighter. He shows no fear or apprehension. I’ve come to realise how resilient he’s been in dealing with his isolation, desperately alone, estranged from family, friends and country, and at the mercy of his former sworn enemies, the comrades of people he’s murdered. That he’s still alive is extraordinary, and contrary to all predictions, including mine. Nevertheless, despite the fraught situation, he’s prepared to testify against the police.
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