Category: Author

‘… a songline of self, of transcending grief, shame and regret and of coming to a deep sense of peace’—HAMILTON WENDE

Roger Lucey survived a covert security police campaign which destroyed his music career. He survived the drug addiction and disaffection which followed. He survived a decade and a half as a cameraman documenting the wars of Africa and Eastern Europe. Survival was not enough though. Broken and despairing, he needed to find a way to reclaim his life and creativity. With no previous experience, but with a vague idea that the process might lead to healing, he set out to build a house in the mountains of the Breede River Valley during South Africa’s first years of democracy. This is the remarkable story of that house and the path that led Roger out of the darkness of his past back into the light of his music. How to Build a House in the Mountains is a memoir as well as a live solo show featuring stories and songs inspired by the journey.

Praise for How to Build a House in the Mountains

‘A lyrical, poignant, reflective and redemptive journey through Lucey’s colour-splattered and fully lived life of achievements and failures, anchored by a rough-hewn, hand-built home in the mountains – his private shield against the chaos that has often followed him.’—STEVEN BOYKEY SIDLEY

‘Roger writes with the same wholehearted passion and zest with which he’s lived his extraordinary life. He crafts this memoir the same way he built his house in the mountains, step-by-fascinating-step. A moving and inspiring story told by an ace troubadour.’—JOHN MAYTHAM

About the author

Born in Durban, ROGER LUCEY started writing and performing songs in the mid-seventies. His first album, The Road Is Much Longer, was banned for possession and distribution, and the security police launched a covert ‘operation’ to silence him. Roger went on to work as a TV journalist covering wars in Southern and East Africa, and later in Madagascar, Bosnia and Chechnya. After more than a decade, he left the news industry to join Theatre for Africa, an environmental theatre company. He later became editor and presenter of an e.TV nightly arts/news programme for which he received the Arts and Culture Trust Award. In May 2010, he graduated as valedictorian from Duke University’s Graduate School of Liberal Studies. His autobiography, Back in from the Anger, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Alan Paton Award. At the time, his work was featured in the inaugural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Culture in Gothenburg, Sweden. In 2016, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the South African Music Awards.

ISBN: 978-1-0492-1510-5

Publication date: November 2025