An Ounce of Practice
Leo Zeilig

Overview

An Ounce of Practice is a richly populated and original novel about the toll of fighting wholeheartedly for a political cause.
 
Viktor is angry about the injustices he sees around him. Railing against social, racial and economic inequalities, he is obsessed with radical ideas which he believes would make the world a fairer place. Living in a hotbed of revolutionary thinking where friends and lovers spur him on, as his family life disintegrates, he decides to travel to Zimbabwe to put his ideals into practice. However, it is more difficult and dangerous than he imagines.

Political Fiction | ISBN: 9781908446640  | eBook

Leo Zeillig

Leo Zeilig is a writer and researcher. He has written extensively on African politics and history, including books on working-class struggle and the development of revolutionary movements, and biographies on some of Africa ’s most important political thinkers and activists. Leo is an editor of the Review of African Political Economy, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and Research Associate at the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg , South Africa . His critically acclaimed novel Eddie the Kid won the Creative Work Prize at the University of the Western Cape.

Endorsements


‘A beautiful haunting tale out of Africa that weaves love and politics, politics and love, and desire that overwhelms’
ASHWIN DESAI, author of We Are the Poors
Leo Zeiligreveals the full complexity, beauty, richness and contradictions of a life of political commitment, internationalism and struggle. Karl Marx once wrote to a comrade that we must engage in “ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be,”  Despite heartache, failings and other all-too-human qualities, Zeilig’s characters embody that spirit and determination.’
ANTHONY ARNOVE, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
'Ounce of Practicepaints a compelling picture of the desperate world of migrants and émigrés drawn to the flickering flame of revolt despite the tsunami of neoliberalism. Leo Zeilig has delved deep, with a cold eye and a warm wit into the passions and motivations of his cast of committed but troubled characters.’
COLIN FANCY – aka Colin Revolting: columnist, playwright

‘An Ounce of Practice tells a gripping and affective tale of global radical politics, love, and life in the virtual realm of the Internet. … [P]olitically and emotionally intelligent, authentic, intensely complex, and humane. With this vivid work Leo Zeilig has placed himself firmly as a momentous writer of the predicament of radical politics and imagination in today’s world’.                             
HEIKE BECKER - University of the Western Cape, Anthropology

‘Leo Zeilig’s second ‘Leo Zeilig’s second novel brims with longing and loss, stretching from the intimate failures of the family to the burning urgency of political resistance in Zimbabwe. Zeilig asks what it means in an age of digital activism and sex by text, to attempt to live truly and fully. In his fusion of the personal and the political, Zeilig refuses to look away, pointing the reader’s gaze right at the uncomfortable and forcing us to admit our weaknesses. This is fiction that does not lie’                               
SARAH GREY - writer, editor, columnist

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