"This book was earlier published in Southern Africa under ISBN 978-1-4314-0479-7 by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2012."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- Banishment: an old and common practice -- Banishment and rural resistance in the early 1950s: GaMatlala and Witzieshoek -- Banishment and rural resistance in the late 1950s: Bahurutshe and Sekhukhuneland -- Banishment and rural resistance in the late 1950s and early 1960s: Mpondoland, Thembuland and Natal -- Urban political opposition and banishment -- Banishments under the Suppression of Communism Act -- Life in banishment -- Responses to banishment -- CONCLUSION -- Copy of banishment order -- Release order from banishment -- Can Themba, ‘Banned to the bush.’ Drum, August 1956 -- Cosmas Desmond, ‘Vorster’s forgotten people.’ Guardian Weekly, 19 June 1971 -- List of people banished -- Notes -- Index.

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The apartheid state employed many weapons against its opponents: imprisonment, banning, detention, assassination – and banishment. In a practice reminiscent of Tsarist and Soviet Russia, a large number of ‘enemies of the state’ were banished to remote areas, far from their homes, communities and followers. Here their existence became ‘a slow torture of the soul’, a kind of social death. This is the first study of an important but hitherto neglected group of opponents of apartheid, set in a global, historical and comparative perspective. It looks at the reasons why people were banished, their lives in banishment and the efforts of a remarkable group of activists, led by Helen Joseph, to assist them.