This book focuses on a small group of white radicals, centred on the experiences of Jeanette (Jenny) Curtis and Marius Schoon, between 1972 and 1984. In large part, the individuals who are at the core of this book are largely absent from the existing historiography of the anti-apartheid struggle. Jenny's story has been told, in part, via a memoir by her father, Jack Curtis, and Jonathan Ancer's 2017 biography of Craig Williamson. Interviews with Marius Schoon were included in The Rift, Hilda Bernstein's collection on the exile experience, as well as Julie Frederikse's book on nonracialism, The Unbreakable Thread, published in 1990. Beyond this, there is little to speak of. Unlike their better-known contemporaries, Joe Slovo and Ruth First, no full biographies have been published for either of the Schoons and neither are they generally spoken of in books that cover the armed struggle or the ANC. Part of the reason for this absence, I argue, is because the Schoons’ story is – in important respects – ‘unusable’ in the sense that neither their participation in the anti-apartheid struggle nor the multiple moments of tragedy in their lives fits neatly within a triumphant narrative. However, it is precisely the fact that this history is not easily contained within the standard narratives of the liberation struggle that it deserves to be researched and analysed.

This book is not a biography of either Jeanette or Marius Schoon. To the extent that what is contained here is of a biographical nature, I’ve taken inspiration from a growing trend among historians to write ‘biographies of a generation’. Luisa Passerini's Autobiography of a Generation, for example, analyses the radical upheaval in Italy in 1968, while Robert Foster's Vivid Faces depicts the Irish generation that fought for independence around the turn of the twentieth century.