A Human Being Died That Night, by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

Eugene de Kock is the former head of covert operations and death squad unit of the South African Police, which operated from a farm called Vlakplaas located outside Pretoria. The unit hunted down ar killed anti-apartheid activists. De Kock was arrested in May 1994, a in 1996 was tried, convicted and sentenced to 212 years in prison.

The author interviewed de Kock for more than 46 hours over a three month period in 1998. In this book, she reflects on these interviews and engages in a nuanced scrutiny of how an apparently ordinary person became drawn to lead a clandestine state-sanctioned unit to become simultaneously a killer and a highly decorated police officer.

Praise for A Human Being Died that Night: A Story of Forgiveness:

"a disturbing voyage into the heart of a professional killer and a coolly intelligent analysis of how the conscience gets to be numbed; but also exploration of the workings of forgiveness...

J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize for Literature

"Gobodo-Madikizela has composed a beautiful moral document that is without a whisper of easy grace."

Lance Morrow, essayist for Time Magazine

"I know of no other story in real life where two such different protagonists have engaged with each other so closely, with such intense intimacy, with so much confusion and with so much respectful restraint."

Albie Sachs, former Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa

"Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela has every reason to loathe renowned apartheid death squad chief Eugene de Kock. But in this searching look at him, she gives evidence of an even greater human mystery: the capacity for understanding and compassion."

Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost