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Cold Stone Jug
Herman Charles Bosman's unique account of the term he served as a young man in Pretoria Central Prison, convicted of murder, and initially condemned to hang on death row, he had his sentence commuted to be a regular convict through the 1920s and into the 30s.
By turns gruesome and humorous, and bravely wrenched out of his tortured memory, when it was first published in 1949 - fifty years ago - Cold Stone Jug was greeted as too grim and dubious for polite literary circles, although it proved a reliable seller. Its rise to classic status has been unstoppable, and it is now widely considered the founding text of all South African prison writings. As readable as ever, it is now hailed as Bosman's masterpiece of irony as well, vivid and unforgettable.
By turns gruesome and humorous, and bravely wrenched out of his tortured memory, when it was first published in 1949 - fifty years ago - Cold Stone Jug was greeted as too grim and dubious for polite literary circles, although it proved a reliable seller. Its rise to classic status has been unstoppable, and it is now widely considered the founding text of all South African prison writings. As readable as ever, it is now hailed as Bosman's masterpiece of irony as well, vivid and unforgettable.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1949
About the author
Herman Charles Bosman
52 books23 followersHerman Charles Bosman (1905 - October 14, 1951) was a South African writer and journalist who became famous for capturing the rhythms of backveld Afrikaans speech even though he wrote in English. He is widely regarded as the greatest short story writer to come out of South Africa. Many of his stories have a sting in the tail.
He was born at Kuilsrivier, near Cape Town. While still young, his family moved to Johannesburg where he went to school at Jeppe Boys High School in Kensington. He was a contributor to the school magazine. When he was 16, he started writing amusing short stories for the national Sunday newspaper (the Sunday Times). He attended the University of the Witwatersrand submitting various pieces to student’s literary competitions.
Upon graduating, he accepted a teaching position in the Groot Marico district. The area and the people inspired him and provided the background for his best stories; the ones about Oom Schalk Lourens and the Voorkamer sketches. (In Afrikaans, Oom is Uncle and a Voorkamer is literally the Front Room).
During the school holidays in 1926, he returned to visit his family in Johannesburg. During an argument, he fired a rifle at his stepbrother and killed him.
He was sentenced to death and moved to Death row at the Pretoria Central Prison. He was reprieved and sentenced to ten years with hard labour. In 1930, he was released on parole after serving half his sentence. His experiences formed the basis for one of his best known books, Cold Stone Jug.
He then started his own printing press company and was part of a literary set in Johannesburg, associating with poets, journalists and writers. Needing a break, he then toured overseas for nine years, spending most of his time in London. The short stories that he wrote during this period formed the basis for another of his best-known books, Mafeking Road.
At the start of the Second World War, he returned to South Africa and worked as a journalist. He found the time to translate the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam into Afrikaans.
He lamented the fact that Johannesburg never respected its heritage; writing in The Standard Theatre "They will pull down the Standard Theatre like they have pulled down all the old buildings, theatres, gin-palaces, dosshouses, temples, shops, arcades, cafes and joints that were intimately associated with the mining-camp days of Johannesburg. Because I know Johannesburg. And I am satisfied that there is no other city in the world that is so anxious to shake off the memories of its early origins."
He married Ella Manson, and the couple were renowned for their bohemian lifestyle and parties. His parties ended well after midnight with much witty conversation. After a housewarming party he was taken ill with severe chest pains and was taken to Edenvale Hospital. On admission he was asked, "Place of birth?" He replied, "Born Kuilsrivier - Died Edenvale Hospital." He was discharged and collapsed at home a few hours later. He died as he was being rushed to hospital. He is buried in Westpark Cemetery in Westdene.
Only three of his books were published during his lifetime; Mafeking Road published by Dassie, and Jacaranda in the Night and Cold Stone Jug published by APB.
His biography was written by Valerie Rosenberg and was called Sunflower to the sun ISBN 079811228X Human & Rousseau.
Because many of his stories were originally published in long-forgotten magazines and journals, there are a number of anthologies by different collators each containing a different selection. His original books have also been published many times by different publishers.
He was born at Kuilsrivier, near Cape Town. While still young, his family moved to Johannesburg where he went to school at Jeppe Boys High School in Kensington. He was a contributor to the school magazine. When he was 16, he started writing amusing short stories for the national Sunday newspaper (the Sunday Times). He attended the University of the Witwatersrand submitting various pieces to student’s literary competitions.
Upon graduating, he accepted a teaching position in the Groot Marico district. The area and the people inspired him and provided the background for his best stories; the ones about Oom Schalk Lourens and the Voorkamer sketches. (In Afrikaans, Oom is Uncle and a Voorkamer is literally the Front Room).
During the school holidays in 1926, he returned to visit his family in Johannesburg. During an argument, he fired a rifle at his stepbrother and killed him.
He was sentenced to death and moved to Death row at the Pretoria Central Prison. He was reprieved and sentenced to ten years with hard labour. In 1930, he was released on parole after serving half his sentence. His experiences formed the basis for one of his best known books, Cold Stone Jug.
He then started his own printing press company and was part of a literary set in Johannesburg, associating with poets, journalists and writers. Needing a break, he then toured overseas for nine years, spending most of his time in London. The short stories that he wrote during this period formed the basis for another of his best-known books, Mafeking Road.
At the start of the Second World War, he returned to South Africa and worked as a journalist. He found the time to translate the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam into Afrikaans.
He lamented the fact that Johannesburg never respected its heritage; writing in The Standard Theatre "They will pull down the Standard Theatre like they have pulled down all the old buildings, theatres, gin-palaces, dosshouses, temples, shops, arcades, cafes and joints that were intimately associated with the mining-camp days of Johannesburg. Because I know Johannesburg. And I am satisfied that there is no other city in the world that is so anxious to shake off the memories of its early origins."
He married Ella Manson, and the couple were renowned for their bohemian lifestyle and parties. His parties ended well after midnight with much witty conversation. After a housewarming party he was taken ill with severe chest pains and was taken to Edenvale Hospital. On admission he was asked, "Place of birth?" He replied, "Born Kuilsrivier - Died Edenvale Hospital." He was discharged and collapsed at home a few hours later. He died as he was being rushed to hospital. He is buried in Westpark Cemetery in Westdene.
Only three of his books were published during his lifetime; Mafeking Road published by Dassie, and Jacaranda in the Night and Cold Stone Jug published by APB.
His biography was written by Valerie Rosenberg and was called Sunflower to the sun ISBN 079811228X Human & Rousseau.
Because many of his stories were originally published in long-forgotten magazines and journals, there are a number of anthologies by different collators each containing a different selection. His original books have also been published many times by different publishers.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 22, 2013
From an early age Bosman started writing short stories for local newspapers. As a freshly graduated young man Bosman was appointed to a teaching post in the Groot Marico district of South Africa. A most fruitful year, for the place and the people enthralled him - they provided him with the background for his best-known works, the Oom Schalk Lourens and Voorkamer sketches.
On his return to Johannesburg for the June holidays, his visit ended in catastrophy in the house of his mother and stepfather when he fired a hunting rifle at his stepbrother and killed him. Bosman was sentenced to death, but later a reprieve was granted and at the age of 21 he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour. He relates his prison experience in "Cold Stone Jug"
Herein he paints a vivid picture of his life in jail during the 1920's and the hardships & realities inter-weaved with a bits of humour, irony and a glimpse into insanity. This novel is certainly worth reading!
On his return to Johannesburg for the June holidays, his visit ended in catastrophy in the house of his mother and stepfather when he fired a hunting rifle at his stepbrother and killed him. Bosman was sentenced to death, but later a reprieve was granted and at the age of 21 he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour. He relates his prison experience in "Cold Stone Jug"
Herein he paints a vivid picture of his life in jail during the 1920's and the hardships & realities inter-weaved with a bits of humour, irony and a glimpse into insanity. This novel is certainly worth reading!
October 18, 2013
I just loved Bosman's delivery in describing the events of prison life. His personality and humour come across in his writing, treating the quite heavy subject of prison in a way that is not at all as depressing as you might think. There are some beautifully poignant moments in the book and at one point he builds the tension and claustrophobia to a point which had me squirming. The stories borrowed/retold from other prisoners were a highlight. He has a way with conveying the personality of the speaker which is quite captivating. All up, this was a really enjoyable read and I'll be reading it again in the future I'm sure.
December 9, 2013
utterly delightful "dark" read...I enjoyed his grim sense of humor about death and everyday experiences in prison...he made a strong exploration of real human suffering without falling into some kind of predictable resolution...I want to gather a shelf for students beginning with this selection, Day in the Life of Ivan..., and Faulkner's "Old Man" just for starters...I'm sure there are other worthy studies of convicts...perhaps I should actually READ Shawshank Redemption...
July 28, 2011
The best prison memoir I've ever read - Bosman was imprisoned for murder and sentenced to death. I can't remember now why that was commuted... I'd really like to read this again.
July 14, 2026
"They were no longer human beings. They were no longer people, or living creatures in the ordinary sense of the word. They were merely battered receptacles of stories."p.45
This one is for fans of Dostoevsky's 'The House of the Dead' (or vice versa) specifically, but more broadly for critics of a punitive system of incarceration, but it ought to be on the list of people who think that the prison system is a-ok as is.
In 'The House of the Dead,' Dostoevsky concludes that: "those [prisoners] were exceptional men. Perhaps they were the most gifted, the strongest of our people. But their mighty energies were vainly wasted, wasted abnormally, unjustly, hopelessly. And who was to blame, whose fault was it?"
In Cold Stone Jug, Herman Charles Bosman, writing just under a century later of his time as a prisoner in South Africa rather than Siberia, nevertheless echoes the same tragic sense of wasted life. In one anecdote about a fellow prisoner, who tells him it will take seven years to complete his assigned task of organizing outdated prison paperwork, Bosman writes:
Also similarly to Dostoevsky, though also ultimately suggesting that prison wastes life, Bosman covers the full emotional range of the lives of convicts. He writes of how, even in such unnaturally restricted conditions, humans are intelligent creatures who require stimulation, not only food and sleep, to live. His descriptions of what the convicts would create to that end speak deeply of human ingenuity. Sometimes, it's somewhat silly; schemes for getting marijuana smuggled into the prison, childish but funny and harmless pranks played on the prison guards, acts of rebellion that spark then fizzle out. One particularly amusing episode is one in which Bosman describes how higher learning sweeps through the prison, and the prisoners become obsessed with taking university courses remotely despite being woefully under-educated and therefore unable to cope with the coursework, but striving anyway.
He tells us the whole thing culminates in a ritual in which to prove your smarts, you had to memorize the definitions of 'zebra' and 'quagga' as a means of being able to answer the question: 'what's the difference between a zebra and a quagga?' Apparently, even some of the guards got in on it, and if a newer prisoner hadn't yet memorized the definitions, they'd scoff at them for being so stupid as to not even have this most basic of information at their fingertips.
Overarchingly, Bosman's account is lighthearted in nature, though of the 'laughing through tears' variety, in which even comical episodes such as the zebra/quagga one still have a sense of sadness about them.
Bosman, who spent ten years in prison for murder, is originally sentenced to die, but his sentence is commuted to ten years in prison at the last minute, soon after his cellmate has been hanged. Also similarly to the 'character' who narrates The House of the Dead, Bosman doesn't tell us more than that about his own crime, though he does say he was unusual among the inmates for not claiming innocence when asked what he was in for.
We get some really great character sketches of people he meets there, and he seems to portray them frankly and without much commentary on whether or not their stories are to be fully believed or taken with a grain of salt, and they run the gamut from pathetic to pretty vile (one prisoner whose interview he purports to dictate was in prison for raping an eleven year-old, and not for the first time. Bosman records the man's insistence that he did nothing wrong, and that in fact, he and the girl were lovers, and so on. Deeply uncomfortable, that chapter).
The way he writes of himself is interesting. He seems to have understood himself to be a somewhat unreliable narrator of his own experiences, yet tried, I think, to be honest, writing of himself sometimes favourably, sometimes not.
One aspect of his life in prison that he seems to have had very mixed feelings about was the unrequited love of another inmate for him. Very close on the beginning of the book, he talks at length about how in prison he learned that homosexuality was far more common than he previously thought, and that in learning this, he was able later in life to "extend to such things a theoretical tolerance which I did not have while I was still in prison" (p.46). Of the inmate in love with him, he claimed to have a revulsion towards the man, yet accepted his help and somewhat tolerated his platonic companionship sometimes, but then other times would find the man's attraction deeply repulsive, and his love letters to him disquieting at best, and disgusting at worst. Yet, he portrays the man as sympathetic, maybe pathetic, and in some ways, as his closest friend and confidant while incarcerated with him.
The emotional turmoil of it is very interesting, because it reveals a man experiencing the mixed emotions many women experience when put in the position of being an object of desire by men they are for some reason forced to endure. The constant vigilance and aloofness women often feel it necessary to use as a shield lest the men who desire them interpret kindness or friendliness in bad faith as indications of mutual attraction. The implication being that, if they do, sexual violence might be on the table if the man is subsequently rejected. And though Bosman never outright says that this was a fear he had, that anxiety is there sub-textually.
I read once that homophobia is when a man fears being treated the way he treats women, and considering some of the ways Bosman wrote about women... Well... Maybe.
Towards the end of his prison sentence and the end of the autobiography, Bosman writes of his struggles with mental health. It's the darkest part of the book by a wide margin, and it's the only part he doesn't sugar-coat with humour. His deepest fear about prison was that he would slide into insanity, and it seemed for a time that his fear might possibly be realized. He was hallucinating, he was paranoid, it was impacting him physiologically, and at the same time, he struggled to keep it hidden because even worse than being in prison, he said, would have been being carted off to a sanitorium. Considering he was writing about life in the 1920s, I can well believe that he was right to be afraid of this outcome, and indeed, he said that even twenty years later his mental health hadn't fully recovered. He doesn't call it PTSD, and maybe that wouldn't be exactly right, but obviously, being in prison was traumatic in spite of some of the good times he wrote about, and it was trauma that left deep scars.
It needs be remarked, that the latter part of the autobiography in which he accounts his, for all intents and purposes, nervous breakdown, is the best written. His voice in the entire book is very clear and well put together, but in describing his headspace at that time, he revealed he had the chops to write beautifully too, albeit about distressing subject matter.
Is it clear yet that I really liked this book? It so deserves a spot on my shelf next to House of the Dead, and I'm grateful to my South African book club comrade for bringing Bosman's story to us.
And thanks to Bosman for following the golden rule of memoir: make sure you understand who your audience is and what about your life would be interesting to them, and leave the rest on the cutting room floor.
This one is for fans of Dostoevsky's 'The House of the Dead' (or vice versa) specifically, but more broadly for critics of a punitive system of incarceration, but it ought to be on the list of people who think that the prison system is a-ok as is.
In 'The House of the Dead,' Dostoevsky concludes that: "those [prisoners] were exceptional men. Perhaps they were the most gifted, the strongest of our people. But their mighty energies were vainly wasted, wasted abnormally, unjustly, hopelessly. And who was to blame, whose fault was it?"
In Cold Stone Jug, Herman Charles Bosman, writing just under a century later of his time as a prisoner in South Africa rather than Siberia, nevertheless echoes the same tragic sense of wasted life. In one anecdote about a fellow prisoner, who tells him it will take seven years to complete his assigned task of organizing outdated prison paperwork, Bosman writes:
"A man could meet a girl and fall in love and get married and have quite a number of children, all in seven years. And he could get a job and get fired, and travel all over the world, and starve and succeed and lust and weep and hate and take vengeance. All these things in all these years. And during that time, Botha the convict would be sorting the type out of the box [...] And nothing would be happening to Botha during these years. Just nothing at all.p.157-158
Also similarly to Dostoevsky, though also ultimately suggesting that prison wastes life, Bosman covers the full emotional range of the lives of convicts. He writes of how, even in such unnaturally restricted conditions, humans are intelligent creatures who require stimulation, not only food and sleep, to live. His descriptions of what the convicts would create to that end speak deeply of human ingenuity. Sometimes, it's somewhat silly; schemes for getting marijuana smuggled into the prison, childish but funny and harmless pranks played on the prison guards, acts of rebellion that spark then fizzle out. One particularly amusing episode is one in which Bosman describes how higher learning sweeps through the prison, and the prisoners become obsessed with taking university courses remotely despite being woefully under-educated and therefore unable to cope with the coursework, but striving anyway.
He tells us the whole thing culminates in a ritual in which to prove your smarts, you had to memorize the definitions of 'zebra' and 'quagga' as a means of being able to answer the question: 'what's the difference between a zebra and a quagga?' Apparently, even some of the guards got in on it, and if a newer prisoner hadn't yet memorized the definitions, they'd scoff at them for being so stupid as to not even have this most basic of information at their fingertips.
Overarchingly, Bosman's account is lighthearted in nature, though of the 'laughing through tears' variety, in which even comical episodes such as the zebra/quagga one still have a sense of sadness about them.
Bosman, who spent ten years in prison for murder, is originally sentenced to die, but his sentence is commuted to ten years in prison at the last minute, soon after his cellmate has been hanged. Also similarly to the 'character' who narrates The House of the Dead, Bosman doesn't tell us more than that about his own crime, though he does say he was unusual among the inmates for not claiming innocence when asked what he was in for.
We get some really great character sketches of people he meets there, and he seems to portray them frankly and without much commentary on whether or not their stories are to be fully believed or taken with a grain of salt, and they run the gamut from pathetic to pretty vile (one prisoner whose interview he purports to dictate was in prison for raping an eleven year-old, and not for the first time. Bosman records the man's insistence that he did nothing wrong, and that in fact, he and the girl were lovers, and so on. Deeply uncomfortable, that chapter).
The way he writes of himself is interesting. He seems to have understood himself to be a somewhat unreliable narrator of his own experiences, yet tried, I think, to be honest, writing of himself sometimes favourably, sometimes not.
One aspect of his life in prison that he seems to have had very mixed feelings about was the unrequited love of another inmate for him. Very close on the beginning of the book, he talks at length about how in prison he learned that homosexuality was far more common than he previously thought, and that in learning this, he was able later in life to "extend to such things a theoretical tolerance which I did not have while I was still in prison" (p.46). Of the inmate in love with him, he claimed to have a revulsion towards the man, yet accepted his help and somewhat tolerated his platonic companionship sometimes, but then other times would find the man's attraction deeply repulsive, and his love letters to him disquieting at best, and disgusting at worst. Yet, he portrays the man as sympathetic, maybe pathetic, and in some ways, as his closest friend and confidant while incarcerated with him.
The emotional turmoil of it is very interesting, because it reveals a man experiencing the mixed emotions many women experience when put in the position of being an object of desire by men they are for some reason forced to endure. The constant vigilance and aloofness women often feel it necessary to use as a shield lest the men who desire them interpret kindness or friendliness in bad faith as indications of mutual attraction. The implication being that, if they do, sexual violence might be on the table if the man is subsequently rejected. And though Bosman never outright says that this was a fear he had, that anxiety is there sub-textually.
I read once that homophobia is when a man fears being treated the way he treats women, and considering some of the ways Bosman wrote about women... Well... Maybe.
Towards the end of his prison sentence and the end of the autobiography, Bosman writes of his struggles with mental health. It's the darkest part of the book by a wide margin, and it's the only part he doesn't sugar-coat with humour. His deepest fear about prison was that he would slide into insanity, and it seemed for a time that his fear might possibly be realized. He was hallucinating, he was paranoid, it was impacting him physiologically, and at the same time, he struggled to keep it hidden because even worse than being in prison, he said, would have been being carted off to a sanitorium. Considering he was writing about life in the 1920s, I can well believe that he was right to be afraid of this outcome, and indeed, he said that even twenty years later his mental health hadn't fully recovered. He doesn't call it PTSD, and maybe that wouldn't be exactly right, but obviously, being in prison was traumatic in spite of some of the good times he wrote about, and it was trauma that left deep scars.
It needs be remarked, that the latter part of the autobiography in which he accounts his, for all intents and purposes, nervous breakdown, is the best written. His voice in the entire book is very clear and well put together, but in describing his headspace at that time, he revealed he had the chops to write beautifully too, albeit about distressing subject matter.
Is it clear yet that I really liked this book? It so deserves a spot on my shelf next to House of the Dead, and I'm grateful to my South African book club comrade for bringing Bosman's story to us.
And thanks to Bosman for following the golden rule of memoir: make sure you understand who your audience is and what about your life would be interesting to them, and leave the rest on the cutting room floor.
June 29, 2017
Cold Stone Jug stands out in so many ways - its irony, its humor in the shadow of the gallows, its understated emotion, its feel for people and their language, its accessible style. It's a classic of prison writing. When I think of other writers who've tackled this genre like Henri Charriere, Breyten Breytenbach, Solzhenitsyn, Donald Woods etc., they're all memorable, but Cold Stone Jug can stand with the best of them.
April 3, 2026
'I had learnt one thing. And that was that I was mad, stone mad. And that all the other people in the world were mad, also. And I learnt that what I had to do was to play-act sane.
And I am still doing that same thing. I am still play-acting sane: it has come easy to me, with the years. And I have learnt now how not to see these horrid figures etched in black lines on the paper, as I write.'
And I am still doing that same thing. I am still play-acting sane: it has come easy to me, with the years. And I have learnt now how not to see these horrid figures etched in black lines on the paper, as I write.'
February 25, 2019
Literal gallows humor
January 14, 2021
The story of the authors time in prison. You can picture the events he writes about.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews