A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid

Winner of the 2024 Templeton Prize

"The story of an almost unimaginable dialogue...an exploration of evil, innocence, and the gray spaces in between."--New York Times

"A startlingly personal account...written with clarity, energy, and enormous empathy"--Washington Post

A Mariner Books Classic

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, internationally reknowned for her understanding of violent histories and transgenerational trauma, recounts an extraordinary dialogue. As her book opens, in an act of inescapable symbolism and psychological courage, she enters Pretoria's maximum security prison to meet Eugene de Kock, called "Prime Evil" for his role as killing machine for South Africa's Apartheid regime. What follows is a journey into what it means to be human.

In arresting scenes, Gobodo-Madikizela, who grew up in a Black township during apartheid South Africa, conveys her struggle with contradictory impulses to hold de Kock accountable and to forgive. Ultimately, she allows us to witness his extraordinary awakening of conscience.

The author's profound understanding of the language and memory of violence, and of the searingly complex issues surrounding apology and forgiveness after mass atrocity, have left a mark on international scholarship and on our emotional lives.

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela holds the South African National Research Foundation Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma and is director of the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest at Stellenbosch University. She served on the Human Rights Violations Committee of South Africa's great national experiment in social repair, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Her book A Human Being Died That Night is in multiple translations and was winner of the Alan Paton Award and the Christopher Award. Gobodo-Madikizela is the recipient of numerous international awards and has delivered many public lectures, keynotes, and endowed lectures globally.