James Kilgore’s Life Story: As Riveting as His Fiction

A major profile on James Kilgore, author of We Are All Zimbabweans Now, appeared in this weeks Mail & Guardian. Read Gavin Evans’ notes on Kilgore’s amazing life:

He might have remained undetected had it not been for the arrest of Kathy Soliah (living in Minnesota as “soccer mom” Sara Jane Olson) — which prompted her to join three of her former SLA comrades in cutting a plea-bargained deal. Kilgore decided to follow suit and in April 2002 retained lawyers for this purpose.

“This involved secret calls to my lawyer in the States,” he explains. “I’d sneak off to find a payphone so I’d have a non-traceable line. I also went to fancy hotels and phoned from their desk, and I’d go to the UCT library and surf the internet to see if there were any leads to me from the Sara Jane Olson case. I don’t know who my lawyer spoke with as we were trying to be careful, but obviously the careful part didn’t quite work out.”

He’d been planning to hand himself in by January 2003, but received his first and only hint of trouble on November 7 2002 when two South Africans arrived for a “survey on the shape of wine bottles”. They held up two bottles and said: “Which one do you like better? Here, just touch it and feel it.” Kilgore held the bottles and realised: “These people are getting my finger prints — and they were.”

• Complete article in the Mail & Guardian

Book details

• We are All Zimbabweans Now by James Kilgore
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781415200711
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Photo courtesy the Mail & Guardian

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