Memory is the weapon

The story of Sophiatown has been told before but never with the eloquence that Don Mattera brings to Memory is the Weapon. Many faces make up the whole that was Sophiatown: teeming with political campaigns, bristling with the knives of the underworld and vigorous with the enterprise of ordinary people eking out a living for themselves, all this contributing to a burgeoining culture. Mattera captures it all in colourful and often heart-rending vignettes. These are the memories of a man who has touched the cloaks of the holy and the unholy, broken bread with the rich and the poor, crossed…