In the Dark with My Dress on Fire: My Life in Cape Town, London, Havana and Home Again

During the struggle to end apartheid, Blanche La Guma led a complex and demanding life as a nurse-midwife by day and underground activist—within a clandestine Communist cell—by night. Harassed, banned, and at one time imprisoned, Blanche worked tirelessly to support her family in Cape Town while providing safe houses for anti-apartheid leaders, such as Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki. Forced into exile in 1966, Blanche continued the fight for justice in London and, later, in Havana, where she mentored hundreds of African National Congress students sent to Cuba after the 1976 Soweto Uprising. This rare firsthand account chronicles Blanche’s life as a South African exile in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, traveling through the Communist world at large, and finally returning to her country with dignity and freedom.