Reading like a spy thriller, this biography tells the remarkable story of a young woman's courage in apartheid-ridden South Africa. As the book opens, in 1963, South Africa is in crisis and the white state is under siege. On August 15, the dreaded security police swoop down on Griggs Bookstore--Durban's finest literary haunt and a place where African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party comrades frequented to receive or deliver messages and money to advance the cause of the struggle--to arrest Eleanor Kasrils, the manager's daughter. The police threaten to "break her or hang her" if she does not lead them to her lover, Ronnie Kasrils, who is wanted on suspicion of sabotage for setting off explosions and toppling electricity poles. Though she comes under intense pressure during interrogation, Eleanor has her own secret to conceal. She has been acting as a clandestine agent for the underground ANC, utilizing the books as a means to deliver documents: "If the contact was delivering a document it was handed to her with a book for purchase. Similarly if she had a document that the courier was collecting, it would be hidden within the pages of a book already packaged and handed over as a purchase." Always, the transfer of secret documents could only take place once the recipient whispered a code: "Well, let me take both books." In order to protect her handlers and Ronnie at all costs, she astutely convinces the police that she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and, still a prisoner, is sent off to a mental hospital in Pietermaritzburg for assessment. It is here that she plots her escape and--pursued by the police--flees with Ronnie into exile.
Ronnie Kasrils started off as a script writer for a Johannesburg film studio and then for Lever Brothers, as Television and Film Director for their advertising division in Durban, until 1962. In 1960 he was prompted by the Sharpville Massacre to join the ANC, where he served as the secretary of the ANC-aligned Congress of Democrats in Natal until it was banned in 1962. In 1963, Kasrils became Commander of the Natal Regional Command of MK. Exiled for 27 years; he was based in London, Luanda, Maputo, Swaziland, Botswana and Lusaka. He worked underground for the ANC in South Africa during Operation Vula. After the first democratic elections in South Africa, Kasrils was appointed Deputy Minister of Defence from 1994-1999. He then became Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry from 1999-2004 and was appointed Minister of Intelligence Services until he submitted his resignation on 23 September 2008 following former President Thabo Mbeki's resignation in the same month. Ronnie Kasril's extraordinary wife, Eleanor died last year at the age of 73.
"This is a wonderful book about a courageous and extraordinary woman who was highly principled, yet endowed by nature with all the clandestine skills. Her exploits recall the heroism of the great SOE women agents of the Second World War, yet the values she fought for so intrepidly are still in the balance today. Ronnie Kasrils tells her story with humility and a pride that the reader can only share." - John le Carre 'Secret acts of great bravery by hundreds of heroic men and women overthrew apartheid - not brilliant secret negotiating, or a change of heart by the white regime's Western backers. Eleanor Kasrils's amazing role in this story is told by her husband Ronnie for the first time. Readers of his earlier books will recognise the excitement of his storytelling and his memory for telling detail, but the tenderness of this book is new ... Ronnie's response to Eleanor's sudden death last year at home in South Africa was to write this extraordinary book at breakneck speed. It is a love story, a historical document of great importance, and a terrific tale of a clandestine success.' - Victoria Brittain 'This "little" book about an "ordinary" woman with the heart of a lioness confirms the truth that our freedom was not free. From its pages rings out another truth that among the outstanding heroines and heroes of the South African struggle were those who did not set out to perform heroic deeds. These are the heroic combatants for freedom like the Unlikely Secret Agent, Eleanor Kasrils, the subject of this engrossing "little book", who did the equally "little" things without which victory over the apartheid regime would have been impossible ... Eleanor's story also poses a question about the future - what are the "little things" each one of us should do to win the new struggle for the further entrenchment of democracy and the defeat of poverty and underdevelopment, acting as our own liberators.' - Thabo Mbeki
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