About the Author

About the AuthorJames Kilgore speaking at Community House in Cape Town, July 10, 2012.
The author, James Kilgore, lived as a fugitive in South Africa from 1991 to 2002 under the name John Pape.  He was an educator, researcher and activist. In 2002, authorities extradited him to the United States where he served six and a half years in prison for political offenses committed in the 1970s. The idea for Freedom Never Rests emerged from his observation that as a prisoner in the U.S. he enjoyed unlimited access to free water, something which remained out of the reach for so many people in South Africa.

Kilgore currently lives in the U.S. where he a social justice activist and writes widely on issues pertaining to mass incarceration.  He is also a research scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois.  He authored two other novels,  We Are All Zimbabweans Now, described by the Natal Witness as one of the “three best reads” of 2009, and Prudence Couldn’t Swim (PM Press, 2012)

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