Comeback

Poems in Conversation 1984-1989
by Peter Esterhuysen and Paul Mason

Comeback is a collection of poems written during the 1980’s in the form of a dialogue between Peter Esterhuysen (who died in 2004), a poet and scriptwriter of note, and his close friend from university days, Paul Mason. Esterhuysen, who suffered all his life from a crippling and finally fatal disease, cystic fibrosis, was a dynamic artists and social activist whose mastery of language and its subtleties is amply captured by these poetic exchanges generally initiated by him, but which inspired Mason to produce worthy responses.

Mason has gathered these pieces as a tribute to Esterhuysen’s courage and poetic power. The back and forth between them always surprises and the piercing observations so eloquently expressed belie the personal and social pain of that time in South Africa’s recent history.