Behind the book

Letters to my Mother is the story of my early life and how my mother’s suicide when I was just 15 acted as a catalyst for my becoming involved in SA’s liberation struggle.

I joined the school boycotts of the 1980s, started organising young people in my own community and soon became deeply immersed in the ANC underground.

By 1987 I was on the run from the security police and forced into exile. Young people played a vital role in freeing our country from apartheid, often through small acts of everyday heroism, and I wanted to pay tribute to their courage and vision. Yet, as I was finishing the manuscript, suicide blew my world apart again when my beloved son Rikhado took his own life.

Riky’s death forced me to reflect on the present moment in South Africa and confront the “unfinished business” of its liberation movement: we have not yet created the fairer world we dreamed of and for which so many gave their lives. We still live with deep racial, economic and gender inequalities and we now face a climate crisis that threatens our very survival.

I still believe young people hold the key to transformative change. Riky’s concern for young people was deep and passionate; he saw in their creative potential the power to change the world for the better but he also understood their vulnerabilities and challenges. Proceeds from Letters to my Mother will go to the Riky Rick Foundation for Artivism, established in his memory to support young people through arts and culture and promote mental health and wellbeing. —