Somewhere on the Border first appeared as a working script accredited to the Thekwini Theatre Foundation, Amsterdam, in 1983. A version of the script was included in a collection called South Africa Plays, edited and introduced by Stephen Gray in 1993. The publication of five landmark plays that had been penned during the dark days of apartheid coincided with the country's first tentative steps towards dismantling a well-entrenched system of white minority rule. Now, some 20 years after the demise of the apartheid regime Anthony Akerman's play is being published as a stand-alone text for the first time.

This question cannot be answered simply in relation to the publication history of Somewhere on the Border, which also has a history of production, performance and reception. While I do not propose to discuss this history in any detail here, the production of Somewhere on the Border marks a milestone in South African literary history and cultural memory. This is primarily because of its authenticity and the emotive connection of its historical reenactment. It conveys a sense of what young white men experienced in the South African Defence Force (SADF).

Conscription, or national service as it was more commonly called, was a rite of passage for a generation of young white males. Between 1968 and 1993 approximately 600 000 boys aged 18 or more donned the nutria brown uniform of the SADF. As far as most of these conscripts were concerned there was no option other than to heed the call-up. Failure to do so meant harsh penalties. The alternatives were to object on conscientious (actually religious) grounds and face a six-year jail sentence, or to flee the country.

Those who went into exile were sometimes accorded the status of political refugees. This implied that asylum seekers effectively disowned their country and its policies.

The obligations of white males who remained in the country did not end with national service. SADF members were assigned to citizen force or commando units and were liable for periodical call-ups for camps. These might have entailed deployment in the ‘operational areas’ from 1974 against the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) and thereafter against Angolan forces and their Cuban allies.