The work which appears in the following pages was originally drafted as a short
essay intended for publication in a Nigerian journal. When the manuscript was shown to
some friends it was suggested that, because of the political importance of the subject, it
should be revised, expanded and prepared for publication as a pamphlet. This was duly

Decades after its original publication, Year of Fire, Year of Ash still stands as one of the leading accounts of the 1976-77 Soweto Revolt, one of the most significant acts of resistance in the history of the South African anti-apartheid movement.