Quote by Alex La Guma: “It's not enough to be alive, you must live.”

This quote means simply existing isn't enough; one must truly experience and engage with life, despite hardships. It's a call to find meaning and purpose, to live fully and defiantly, even in oppressive conditions that try to dehumanize you.

During the height of apartheid, when life for Black South Africans was severely restricted and dehumanizing, La Guma's work highlighted the defiant human spirit that sought dignity and purpose against systemic oppression and mere survival.

South African novelist and anti-apartheid activist whose fiction — including A Walk in the Night and In the Fog of the Seasons' End — documented life under apartheid with gritty realism. A member of the South African Communist Party, he lived in exile after being banned under apartheid law.