A book chronicling the life and work of activist Paddy Kearney by director of the Denis Hurley Centre (DHC), Dr Raymond Perrier, will be launched on Saturday at the 1860 Heritage Centre.
Today ( August 28) would have been the 82 birthday of Paddy Kearney, the founder of Diakonia and of the Denis Hurley Centre.
An auspicious time to be launching a book about his life and immense contribution in the field of social justice.
Having produced a 240 000 word PhD thesis about Paddy, the DHC’s director Raymond Perrier is about to publish his book version with a foreword by Pravin Gordhan.
The book called Paddy Kearney - a Prophet for our Times is over 320 pages and includes some fascinating historic photographs as well as links to additional online material.
The first chance to buy will be as part of the Annual Paddy Kearney Lecture, organised jointly by the DHC with the Gandhi Development Trust, Active Citizens Movement and DUT. This will be held at the 1860 Heritage Centre on Saturday at 11.30am
The lecturer is Judge Chris Nicholson who was part of the legal team that defended Paddy when he was detained without trial in 1985.
Raymond said: “Paddy’s award-winning book about Archbishop Denis Hurley was called ‘The Guardian of the Light’. I would tease him that that made him the Guardian of the Guardian of the Light. So I guess that now makes me the Guardian of the Guardian of the Guardian of the Light!”
If you order the book now from www.madeindurban.co.za or buy at the launch, you can get your copy at the special price of R256.
In due course the book will also be available in select bookshops and for sale overseas: for more information email [email protected]