James Kilgore Returns to Cape Town to Launch Freedom Never Rests

by Amy on Jul 12th, 2012

On a chilly Cape Town evening, a large crowd gathered in the basement of The Book Lounge for the launch of James Kilgore‘s latest book, Freedom Never Rests. Kilgore lived for years under the alias John Pape on the lam from American justice for 27 years before being arrested in Cape Town in 2002 for his involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army. Following his arrest, he was extradited to California where he served six-and-a-half years in prison.

Kilgore began by thanking his friends in attendance and those who wrote to him while he was in prison, “Who actually writes letters these days?” he joked.

Former colleagues also came to the launch, including Colleen Higgs, who taught with Kilgore at Khanya College in Johannesburg. In addition to thanking his 99-year-old mother who “couldn’t be here, for obvious reasons”, he thanked his wife, Terri, for keeping everything going, for pushing and fighting, and keeping him alive in people’s memory.

Kilgore then spoke briefly about the plot of Freedom Never Rests but asked for interaction from the audience instead of him standing there giving a speech. Terri read a section from the book, which elicited much delight and amusement from the audience. Kilgore told the audience that the starting point for the book was a leaky tap, gushing out free hot water for the inmates in the American jail where he was imprisoned. As he watched this precious resource being wasted, he thought about the poorest communities he had encountered in southern Africa, and their struggle to access water. This theme developed into a greater story about service delivery protests in the Eastern Cape.

During a vibrant question and answer session, the audience pressed Kilgore for details of his time in prison. However, he told the audience that he didn’t think he would ever write about his involvement in the Symbionese Liberation Army, stating that “I’ve moved on. If I wrote about it, there could easily be a way someone would twist it and it would be wrong. Also, in writing your own story you have to write about other people’s stories, you have to include relationships, and there is no way I could have done that, had I wanted to, without jeopardising someone else’s freedom. There might have been someone who helped me, or did something that could place that person in prison. So, I wouldn’t have been able to. I don’t want to. You know, I’ve read biographies of that time and some of those events, texts from the sixties and seventies, and they seem hollow, without a certain depth. There’s a reason for that.”

Questions about his capacity to remember events in great detail, brought forth further interesting responses: “In my last year of prison I did keep a diary, a sensory diary of sorts where I would jot down what people wore, their tattoos, conversations. I interviewed a number of people about their experiences. It was a place where you could have a conversation with someone who had a tattoo of a swastika on his forehead. That was just how it was.”

Once the formal part of the launch was over, guests stayed to mix and mingle over glasses of wine. There was a lot of laughter, catching up with old friends and the sense that, as the title of the book implies, there’s still much work to be done, loose-threads to tie up, new causes and conversations to follow.

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Luso Mnthali tweeted from the launch using #livebooks

“traffic was very heavy and it took a very long time to get here” James Kilgore’s Freedom Never Rests launch #livebooks twitter.com/afrockcentric/…

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

“The last time someone took my photograph here I was in handcuffs” James Kilgore told me after I took his photo… #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

Studying and thinking about water was a way to keep people and communities I could not be with alive, in prison – JK #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

He said that he tried to write using words that his Zimbabwean students wouldn’t disapprove of and call ‘jawbreakers’ – #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

essentially a book about how people pay for services (paying for water) and how badly this is conducted. About activists #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

James Kilgore says for fiction purists this might not be the book, there are lots of meetings in it. “I took some out, but…” #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

“Welcome back, John or James” a woman in the audience, says her daughter Tara played cricket with the ‘Pape’ family. #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

Someone else says he saw a movie about a man on the run, with Symbionese Liberation Army background, named ‘Pope’ #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

A woman in audience says she found out about his identity and said “well if he’s not John Pape, then who am I?” #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012

She wants to know if he’ll ever write about the Symbionese Liberation Army. “No, I don’t think I’ll write about that.” -JK #livebooks

— Luso Mnthali (@afrockcentric) July 10, 2012