Quote by Alex La Guma: “Hope is a dangerous thing, but it is also necessary.”

This quote captures the dual nature of hope: it can lead to disappointment or false promises, yet it's absolutely vital for enduring hardship and striving for a better future, especially in dire and seemingly hopeless circumstances.

La Guma’s experience in detention during apartheid informed his portrayal of resilience. In such oppressive environments, hope was a defiant act, acknowledging its vulnerability but emphasizing its absolute necessity for survival and resistance.

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.