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“I’d rather have a country established on a national truth than on a national myth.”

Famed veteran journalist ­turned­ author, Michael Schmidt, pulled no punches at the launch of his book, Drinking with Ghosts: The Aftermath of Apartheid’s Dirty War (BestRed), in Johannesburg.

Schmidt’s novel, A Reporter’s Notebook, ­which respected journalist Max du Preez calls “the best he’s read”­, dives into a time of anxious revolution and rebellion – a period which Schmidt claims to be “airbrushed”, by selectively nostalgic capitalist opportunists.

“People keep talking about the peaceful transition, but I remember sitting by mass graves every weekend, so I don’t remember the peaceful transition…neither do millions of South Africans who actually went through it,” explains Schmidt.

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