This collection tracks across the political and emotional landscape of twenty years of South African experience. It makes available again the poems from Inside (1983); together with poems from Even the Dead (1997)

The main body of the text, initially prepared in 1986, has been left unaltered, but the authors have added a substantial new introduction and a bibliography of some of the literature that was not then available within the country or emerged after the publication of the book. The authors met in Pretoria Security Prison, both jailed for ANC underground activities. Both have published extensively. Jeremy Cronin is an award-winning poet, his most recent work being Inside and Outside (1999). Raymond Suttner has published Inside Apartheid's Prison (2001) and various scholarly works. Currently Suttner is attached to the History Department of the University of South Africa in Pretoria and Cronin is an ANC member of Parliament, and Deputy General Secretary of the South African Communist Party.