Peter Richard Dreyer is the author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of A Beast in View (London: André Deutsch), The Future of Treason (New York: Ballantine), A Gardener Touched with Genius: The Life of Luther Burbank (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan; rev. ed., Berkeley: University of California Press; new, expanded ed., Santa Rosa, CA: Luther Burbank Home & Gardens), and Martyrs and Fanatics: South Africa and Human Destiny (New York: Simon & Schuster; London: Secker & Warburg). He was born and brought up in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, where he was involved in the anti-apartheid

Internal resistance to South African apartheid

Internal resistance to the apartheid system in South Africa came from several sectors of society and saw the creation of organisations dedicated variously to peaceful protests, passive resistance and armed insurrection. It came from both black activists like Steve Biko and Desmond Tutu as well as...

 struggle, serving on the Cape Provincial Committee of the Liberal Party, founded and led by Alan Paton

Alan Paton

Alan Stewart Paton was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist.-Family:Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province , the son of a minor civil servant. After attending Maritzburg College, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Natal in his hometown, followed...

, and as secretary of the Western Province Press Association, which published the fortnightly The Citizen (which ceased publication in 1959 and should not be confused with the pro-apartheid tabloid of the same name launched in 1976). Dreyer left South Africa in 1962 and subsequently launched and edited Omphalos: A Mediterranean Review in Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

. In 1972, however, he was expelled from Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 by the military junta

Military dictatorship

A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....

 then in power there and moved to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. During the 1970s, he was book columnist for San Francisco

San Francisco (magazine)

San Francisco is an American monthly magazine devoted to San Francisco Bay Area culture, including arts, food, and entertainment. It is published monthly by publications.-History:...

magazine. Since 1988, he has lived in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, where he is currently engaged in writing a family memoir entitled Snatched from the Gulf: Isacq d'Algué and His Ilk.

Reviews

Martyrs and Fanatics was reviewed in the New Republic

The New Republic

The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

by Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 winner Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...

. Dreyer's exchange with the late Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....

 in the New York Times Book Review on the subject of Luther Burbank

Luther Burbank

Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist and a pioneer in agricultural science.He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 54-year career. Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables...

can be found at nytimes.com

Buy a copy of A Gardener Touched with Genius: The Life of Luther Burbank by Peter Dreyer at http://lburbank.users.sonic.net/gift-shop